Shattered Mind, Damaged Soul
by RenegadeWaya
Summary: AU Hiruzen Sarutobi never visited Naruto during the first few years of his life. This meant that he had no one that even tried to show him kindness during those crucial first years of his life. How will his neglect change Naruto? Will he still be the same person? Will he even still be same? Darker past Naruto fic, smart Naruto fic. Rated M for a reason. [ABANDONED]
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Been binge reading tons of Naruto fanfiction for the past couple of weeks and this story has been kicking around in the back of my mind for a few days before I decided to put my ideas down. Not sure where/when the exact idea for this story came from but I pulled some inspiration from various smart Naruto and dark past Naruto fics. This will be my first attempted fanfiction so feedback and critique is welcome as long as it's kept civil and constructive in nature.**

 **Additional warning there will be OOC characters, the timeline and plot will (obviously) be altered and some ages might be messed around with to suit my personal desires. When I decide to mess with a character's age I'll let you know. At the moment the only one I have plans to do this for is Itachi who will be 5 years older than canon so for those that don't know when Naruto was just born he would now be 10 years old.**

 **Also the fic will likely be fairly dark so if darker/more mature themes aren't to your liking then this fic probably isn't for you as there will be depictions graphic violence, torture, foul language and potentially other stuff throughout the fic (no rape though can't stand that shit).**

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, if I did I doubt it'd be as popular as it is.

 **Prologue**

(Naruto - age 4)

It was the middle of the night before the Kyuubi festival and Naruto was lying wide awake in his "bed", which amounted to little more than old springs and dirty rags. That wasn't what was keeping him awake though, as he was already used to the discomfort. It was the prospect of waking up the next morning that kept him awake. He might lack the knowledge of even a normal four-year-old due to the views of his care takers at the orphanage on educating the "demon", but even so he recognized patterns, especially unpleasant ones.

Some of those patterns sprouted from specific actions he took, for instance if he tried to interact with the other children at the orphanage the nearest adult(s) would shout something about the "demon brat" trying to corrupt another child and proceed to beat him into unconsciousness then lock him into his "room". Others, like the one he was worrying about, were attached to specific days or events. All he knew for sure was that for the days leading up to the festival his treatment always got worse, meaning more beatings, less "food" and harsher insults.

He didn't know if it was the same festival every time or even if the day it was on was always the same, for he didn't even know how to count let alone know what things like months or years were. Still he thought that was the case because from what he usually saw the decorations were the same. Regardless he was dreading tomorrow as so far each festival has given him the worst beatings in his memory.

He didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse that he had a perfect memory and could remember the last three festivals in vivid detail. He figured on the latter as his memory was what caused his constant, vivid nightmares.

Sighing heavily, Naruto rolled onto his side, stared out of his window, and saw the faintest hints of light on the horizon showing the very beginning of the day he was dreading. Trying to deny reality for a while longer he turned to face the opposite direction, shutting his eyes in the process. As he laid there trying to will the day away he heard a faint noise like cloth rubbing against something. Frowning at the sound Naruto opens his eyes and to try and look for the cause of the disturbance. Right as was about to sit up he feels a sharp pinch in his neck and then everything faded to black.

"How long do you think he'll be out?"

"Don't know, gave him standard dose for an adult which would leave them unconscious for four hours, but can't be sure it'll be as effective on a demon."

"True, best move him as quickly as possible then, don't want the demon to make this difficult for us."

 **-2 hours later-**

Naruto groaned as he started to regain consciousness and tried to massage his head to ease his headache only to find he couldn't move his arms. Opening his eyes, he found himself in an unfamiliar room hanging from a wall, his arms and legs spread out and attached to separate manacles. Naruto started panicking, as the one thing he could absolutely not stand was not being able to move. If he couldn't move he couldn't get away, and if he couldn't get away that meant he suffered more pain.

He pulled on the chains hoping to get out but they don't budge an inch and at that moment he heard sinister laughing coming from in front of him. He didn't know how he missed them when he woke up but somewhere in the back of his mind he figured it was likely due to his panic. Regardless there were a group of three men standing by a table with what looked like various tools.

One of them, the source of the laughter, was a man with medium length white hair and a half crazed expression on his face.

"So demon" he said "Finally realized the situation you're in huh?"

"Wh-where am I?" Naruto quivered.

"This is going to be your home for a few days "the man responded "at least until my friends here get bored or you die, whichever comes first." He snickered at the last part.

"Why am I here!? I haven't done anything!" Naruto cried.

"Don't lie demon we know what you really are and you're going to get exactly what you deserve." The main roared "It's a pity that I can't stick around but at least I know you're in…capable hands, enjoy your stay demon."

With these parting words he opens the door and exits the room leaving Naruto with the remaining two men. The shorter of the two men, a cold looking person with black eyes and hair, flashes Naruto a big smile. That expression unsettled him more than the other man's words, due to how wrong it looked on his face and the sheer madness present in his dark eyes.

"Now then, I'm afraid I'll also be taking my leave. But don't worry, I'll be back soon, I just have to go get the rest of my friends." The man gives Naruto one last unnerving smile before also exiting the room leaving Naruto alone with the final man.

"I'll finally be able to take revenge for my family today demon, and as much as I would love to make you watch what I'm about to do, on the off chance you survive I'd rather you not remember the other people that show up during your stay."

Saying this the man makes a few quick hand signs before a small ball of flame appears in his hand. Then, he reaches over to the table he's standing next to and picks up a wicked, jagged looking knife. Slowly walking over to Naruto the man puts the knife into the flame, where it quickly starts to glow red from the heat.

"What are you doing!? Please let me go!" Naruto shouts in panic but the man just keeps walking towards him.

When he finally stands in front of Naruto the flame disappears leaving the knife almost burning from the temperatures it's been subjected to.

"Please I never hurt anyone before why are you doing this?" Naruto tries one last time to figure out why he's here.

Sadly, this was apparently the wrong thing to say, as the man instantly frowns and raises his arm. Before Naruto could question what he was doing, the man's arm came back down and his world exploded in pain as half the room was instantly plunged into blackness. Screaming in pain, the last thing Naruto sees before the remaining light in the room turns black is the man's blank white eyes staring at him apathetically.

-Three days later-

Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage and the God of Shinobi, was nervous. Scratch that he was extremely worried. Three days ago he went looking for Naruto to take him out for his birthday. He hadn't seen him since a few days after he was born when he gave him to one of the many orphanages in Konoha for them to look after. He was ashamed to admit it but he had not visited since as he was too busy rebuilding Konoha and trying to keep the council from killing him or taking over the village.

Of course these were just excuses, sure they were valid but it didn't change the fact that he hadn't. It was the prospect of soon having a grandson that finally made him resolve to make an effort to be more of a part of the boy's life. Only things didn't go as planned. Sighing wearily Hiruzen remembered how it had come to this point.

He had went looking for him at the orphanage but when he inquired about his whereabouts no one knew and seemed happy to not have seen the "demon brat" that day. This of course was met with a heavy dose of killing intent from the Hokage before he advised them not to call Naruto a demon if they wanted to keep breathing before leaving to prepare for the festival later that day.

He had known he was letting them off easy but if he killed everyone who called him a demon or some variation of it in the village he'd be down to a handful of shinobi and an even smaller handful of civilians. Still he wasn't bothered much by his absence as he figured the boy must have just gotten up early to avoid the majority of the people. He knew they could get a bit…rowdy on this day but he hadn't heard from the ANBU he had watching the boy that anything bad happened to the boy.

He had resolved himself to treat him to a good meal tomorrow instead as a belated celebration and turned towards the task of finalizing the festival proceedings. However, when he tried again the next day he was given a similar response, although the refrained from calling him a demon this time. Feeling a bit anxious after he returned to his office he had one of his hidden guards fetch the two ANBU that guarded the boy.

Usually this didn't take more than ten minutes as ANBU were elite shinobi and could travel at incredibly high speeds. However, it took more than an hour before the requested ANBU showed up, and they weren't in good shape when they did. They were escorted by his four most trusted agents Dragon, Hound, Weasel, and Cat in addition to the one he sent and were both covered in cuts and restrained tightly.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Hokage calmly asked.

Hound stepped forward. "Hokage-sama the ANBU you sent quickly located both of the requested shinobi but upon telling them the Hokage wished to see them in regards to Naruto's whereabouts they quickly fled and tried to escape the village. Naturally he gave chase and called for backup, which just happened to be us. After a long chase, we cornered them and when they realized they couldn't escape, they attempted to kill us. They failed, and after securing them we took them here."

Hiruzen's killing intent had soared but he maintained a calm expression, which only scared the two ANBU more. Calmly, he asked "Are you going to explain your actions? Or do I need to send you to T/I?"

The two ANBU were sweating profusely underneath their masks but refused to answer.

"I see. Take them to Ibiki and tell him to have fun but get me answers- whatever it takes." Hiruzen said as a malevolent look crossed his face.

Hearing this even his most loyal ANBU cringed a bit before hurrying to obey his command.

"Also when you're down I want all ANBU not guarding me out looking for Naruto, I have a bad feeling about this."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

The next day, and there still wasn't a sign of Naruto. With no leads Hiruzen, had to resolve himself to wait for whatever information the T/I department was able to get from their newest victims. It took a full thirty hours from the time he sent them there for them to break, but then again they weren't elite shinobi without reason. Unfortunately, the information he got was definitely not what he wanted to hear.

"Dragon! Come here now!" Hiruzen roared after reading the report

An ANBU with a dragon mask flashed into the room into a kneeling position.

"Your orders Hokage-sama?"

"I need all ANBU in the village to immediately search for the location of Naruto Uzumaki. Apparently not only have I been lied to about his treatment throughout his life, but those scum have also allowed him to be taken two days ago by unknown shinobi for a simple bribe. The only lead we have is that according to the report one of them was a Hyuga. No one will be allowed to rest until he is found, and I'm also putting this village on lockdown until we locate him. Is that understood?"

"Hai Hokage-sama."

What followed was a long search which still hadn't turned up Naruto and left him in his office praying that news that he had been found would reach him soon. No updates came for another couple of hours and when they did, he almost wished he had heard nothing.

Dragon appeared in front of the Hokage's desk once more in a kneeling position however the usually unreadable man was shaking and Hiruzen knew it wasn't a good sign.

"Report, have you found him Dragon?"

"…Hai." He whispered with barely controlled rage.

The delayed response and clear fury and venom hidden underneath that one word instantly filled him with trepidation, but he knew he had to press on.

"What's his status?"

It was a couple of minutes before Dragon responded which only served to further fill the Hokage with dread.

"..He's…..alive.." Dragon barely managed to choke out "Weasel found him sir and…you'll have to see for yourself sir. The medics… they are still trying to get him out of the manacles."

Hiruzen's heart instantly turned to ice and he barely managed to get out the simple order of "take me to him" before his throat seized up.

Giving a barely perceptible nod Dragon shunshined away with the Hokage in tow. They ended up in front of a rundown but generic home in the slums that was currently surrounded by a large number of ANBU. The sheer amount of killing intent that was being exuded would have caused a civilian to have a heart attack.

Not taking this as a good sign Hiruzen followed Dragon into the house and down a flight of stairs into the basement. What he saw there would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. Naruto was hanging from a wall and all over the floor, walls and even part of the ceiling were massive blood stains. The manacle cuffs hanging him from the wall screwed through his wrists and ankles to keep them in place. But that wasn't the worst part and the sight of Naruto's naked body Hiruzen nearly threw up, when he looked and saw his face and the charred holes that used to be his eye sockets for the first time since the beginning of his ninja career, he finally did.

"Sweet Kami please tell me you have the people who did this." He finally managed to ask

"Hai, we got them Hokage-sama, however due to the…. vigor that Weasel went about apprehending them with only the Hyuga remains alive, although we don't know for how long."

"…I see. Tell me is he a main or branch member?"

"Main Hokage-sama."

"Good, then tell me dragon how confident are you in your medical ninjustu?"

"I'm confident enough to treat a dying comrade but I'm nowhere near the level of Tsunade-sama."

"Are you able to perform eye transplants?"

"Hai, however there is never a hundred percent guarantee of a patient's body accepting the transplant successfully."

"That's acceptable. I have a SS-class mission for you Dragon, do you accept?"

Giving a barely perceptible nod Dragon replies with a simple "Hai.".

Hiruzen continues to stare at the medics working on releasing Naruto from his restraints and keeping him alive. After a few minutes a single tear falls from his face as he whispers so quietly that Dragon thinks he imagines it. "I'm sorry Minato, I've failed your son." Turning away from Naruto Hiruzen proceeds to leave the room signaling Dragon to follow.

"Let me explain your mission Dragon."

-One week later-

Naruto was still in the hospital recovering and hasn't woken up yet which worried Hiruzen greatly. Physically he was fine now surprisingly enough, in fact there were only a few scars left on his body. Of course those were from the worst injuries being the scars from the screws on his wrists and ankles, the vertical scars down both his eyes and a brand of demon stamped onto his left shoulder blade. The best guess they had for why those wouldn't heal was that they had been repeatedly burned to keep from regenerating. The killing intent and roar of anger he unleashed was felt and heard throughout the entirety of Konoha when he learned of that.

The doctors he talked to told him that he was only alive thanks to his tenant, and the sheer regenerative ability he possessed was astounding. Not only were the majority of his scars gone, but the appendages he lost were grown as well. What Hiruzen hadn't noticed, which was lucky because if he had known sooner the barely living Hyuga would have been tortured to death…slowly, thanks to all the blood covering his body was that his fingers, toes, ears and even genitals were cut off. When he was told this he had thrown up for the second time in his entire career as a shinobi.

He broke down and cried and thanked Kami when he was told that they were slowly regrowing and according to the few doctors he trusted to treat Naruto would be better than the originals in some aspects. The best the doctors could come up for the reason for this was that somehow the chakra released by Naruto's tenant to heal his body somehow combined with his Uzumaki bloodline to create an extreme healing factor. However, this was not without cost as during his recovery his quintupled the usual vitamin and fluid intake as a normal patient and even after recovery it hasn't seemed to have changed. They theorized that his metabolism was now permanently adapted to meet this demand.

Another strange thing was that his transplanted eyes, though it was only strange to him and Dragon, were his usual blue color though a bit lighter around the edges. Transplanted Doujutsus like Kakashi's sharingan are always permanently active so when they transplanted Naruto's tormentor's Byakugan they were expecting them to be permanently on. They didn't think it was a problem due to his massive chakra reserves but when they checked his eyes the next day to see how well they've adapted to his system they were shocked when it wasn't active. Even more shocking was that the eye itself wasn't the pupil less all white of a Hyuga, they were his normal blue.

Of course they didn't mention that fact to the doctors, only telling them that Naruto's eye transplants were naturally blue. Still, even though he was physically healed he had not woken up, which was why Hiruzen called for Inoichi, the head of the Yamanaka clan.

Walking into Naruto's hospital room, Inoichi greeted Hiruzen.

"You called for me, Hokage-sama?"

"I did Inoichi, I wish for your help with healing Naruto as he has yet to wake up even after his wounds have healed. This has lead me to the conclusion that his mind has shut down from the shock and I wish for you to use your clan's techniques in order to fix him."

"I see, I will try my best Hokage-sama however, the mind is a complex thing. I'm not sure if I'll be able to fix what's broken, and even if I do he'll likely never be the same."

"That is fine, just do what you can."

Nodding Inoichi walked over to Naruto's bed, placed his hand on the child's head, and began one of his clans jutsu. Inoichi was largely neutral to Naruto as he knew what he held but had little interaction with the boy himself. Like the rest of Konoha he had lost people he was close to in the Kyuubi attack so even though he knew the boy wasn't the reincarnation of the Kyuubi he still didn't want to see him as it brought back painful memories. He had his orders though and would carry them out to the best of his abilities regardless of his ambivalent feelings for the boy.

When he entered Naruto's mind however his opinion changed and he instantly resolved to fix him even at the cost of his own life. He couldn't believe what he saw, Naruto's mind was completely shattered and the few memory fragments he saw floating around were appalling. Inoichi vowed that even if he was successful in his efforts that he would make sure the boy regularly visited him and his family, maybe play with his daughter.

"The boy needs positive contact in his life or else he'd break again regardless of what I do now to fix this. This is going to be a very long session, probably the longest in my clan's history. I'm going to need to exit and tell Hokage-sama."

Cancelling the jutsu Inoichi turns to Hiruzen.

"Hokage-sama his mind for all intents and purposes shattered and to even attempt to repair it will require me to work inside his mind for a number of days I'm not sure exactly how long it will take. I'd recommended having more of my clan come help but no one besides me has enough skill to make the necessary repairs. Thus I will require a bed to be brought in to the room along with having me put on an IV drip and constantly given chakra infusions when I start to run low."

"Are you sure that no one is able to help you? Getting multiple chakra infusions alone is dangerous let alone mind walking for days."

"I'm sure Hokage-sama, it is the only way and I know the risks and I'm willing to risk my life to try and fix him. The things that have been done to him…and I haven't even seen the event that put him in here. I have a daughter his age…I just…can't let this go."

Hiruzen gives a very small sad smile to Inoichi after hearing his words.

"Thank you Inoichi, I will see to it that everything you need will be here and you will be constantly monitored."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

It took less than an hour before Inoichi was ready to enter Naruto's mind once more. this time prepared for the long haul. It took four days of constant work where he had to block off Naruto's worst memories, piece his core personality back together, and add in false memories of random acts of kindness before his work was done.

At first he only tried to piece his personality back together and block the worst of Naruto's memories off. He ran into a problem however as when he did that his mind was incredibly unstable and kept fracturing. To fix this he had to block off yet more memories and add false better ones in their place. Fortunately, this worked and his mind stabilized and was likely stronger and more vibrant than before. Unfortunately, this had the unintended side effect of sealing parts of his previous personality along with the memories.

Inoichi didn't know the exact consequences of this beyond the fact that he would definitely act different from before. He never knew him, so he wouldn't know if that was an improvement or not or even what he had changed, he only knew it would not be the same. He also didn't know if any of his mental facilities would be impacted, but he had done the best he could, and he no longer had the energy to keep working.

Releasing the jutsu he had just enough energy to give the Hokage a quick summary of what he did and the potential side effects before he fell unconscious.

Hiruzen silently thanked Inoichi with all his heart for what he did, even if Naruto wouldn't be the same. Sad enough to say, it wasn't like anyone would notice the change.

Hiruzen winced slightly at the thought, once more berating himself for not being there for Naruto like he should have from the start. Sighing he sat down in the chair they had brought into the room for him and waited for Naruto to wake up. He had slept very little the past few days and had only ever left the room for those few hours each day where he needed the rest.

It was more than an hour later when Naruto finally showed signs of waking up. Hiruzen noticed this and quickly got up to stand by Naruto's bed. When he finally opened his eyes the first thing he did was wince and quickly bring up his hand to cover his eyes. Hiruzen quietly thanked Dragon for his foresight when he suggested that they do something to hide his scars. His reasoning behind this was that Naruto would likely have no memory of them, and seeing them might cause his memories to resurface.

Mentally slapping himself for not thinking of that himself, some Professor he was, he had agreed and preformed a multi layered genjutsu on Naruto to hide the scars not only from him but from everyone else as well.

"How are you feeling Naruto?" Hiruzen asked quietly.

"My eyes hurt." He rasped with a hoarse voice.

"That should pass quickly, do you remember why you're in the hospital Naruto?"

He closed his eyes briefly to think about it before quickly opening them. Turning to Hiruzen he gives him a megawatt grin and says "No clue! Who are you anyways ji-ji?"

Hiruzen face faulted at this "I'm the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, I rule the village."

"Oh….well I like your hat so when I get older I'm going to be Hokage too!" Naruto once more flashes his megawatt smile.

Face faulting once more Hiruzen straightens himself before chuckling softly.

"You have to become a shinobi first Naruto."

"Oh ok! …..what's a shinobi?"

Face faulting once again Hiruzen sighs before smiling slightly. * _This is going to be a long day*_ he thought.

 **AN: Well that was the first chapter, or at least the prologue (that counts as a chapter right?) of my story. Tell me what you think, suggestions, tips and critique is appreciated as long as it's constructive and civil. Also as for pairings beyond Naru/Hina/Ino I got nothing set and no real plans to write about any. This isn't really a Harem fic it'll be a polyamorous relationship (for those that don't know they'll all be dating each other) but if you think it should be tell me your reasons and who should be in it and I'll consider it. Also don't know if I'll write any lemons for this story or not. If I do don't expect much as it would be my first time writing that kind of thing. Don't know when I'll write the next chapter or how often I'll update, sorry for those that care, but I know what I want for the next chapter and have a rough outline for the plot and future chapters so shouldn't be a massive wait in between chapters. Final thing before wrapping up, sorry for the long note (lots to say but notes won't usually be this long) thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **-RenWaya**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I like how I got a review questioning the future plot of my story after I've only written the prologue. There's a reason for the name of this story and it part of it should become apparent in this chapter. I don't mind reviews but at least wait to see where I'm going with something before you jump to conclusions especially if it was only the first chapter lol. Anyways enjoy the chapter**

Bold words will be for jutsu and kyuubi/mindscape talk when it shows up: **brat**

Italic words will be thoughts: _cats_

-Chapter 1: Side Effects-

After continuing to answer the long series of questions Naruto bombarded him, with Hiruzen decided that he no longer needed to be there for the time being. With the promise of coming back tomorrow to get him discharged, he left the room, headed home for his first long rest in weeks. He gave himself a mental note to bring some basic books for shinobi when he returned, as the boy seemed keen on becoming one in the future.

Watching the old man leave the room Naruto finally felt the curiosity-inspired energy leave his system. Since he had to stay in the room till tomorrow anyways, and had nothing better to do, he mentally shrugged and decided to take a short nap. Though he was excited to leave tomorrow, it only took five minutes before his breathing evened out and he was fast asleep.

However, what was unexpected to the lone ANBU guarding the inside of the room was that not a minute later he shot straight back up from his bed. The ANBU thought it was odd but from his hiding spot on the ceiling couldn't see any visual signs that something was wrong. His body wasn't shaking; he didn't have any sweat on the exposed areas of his skin, he wasn't even making any noise. In fact, if anything was odd it was the fact that he had woken up so suddenly yet had shown no signs as to why.

The ANBU decided to make a note of it and report the incident to the Hokage when he next reported in. Shifting his body slightly to get into a more comfortable position, he pulled himself out of his thoughts and went back to looking out for potential threats to the boy and Inoichi, who was currently still asleep.

-Naruto Perspective-

I woke up in another unfamiliar room, not really surprised as the last thing I remembered before I had fallen unconscious was the scent of blood (not my own this time) and what I assumed was fear considering it was similar to the scent I released when I was afraid. After they took my sight from me my other senses rapidly started compensating for the loss.

Unfortunately for me this meant instead of seeing what they were doing I heard it instead. I was able to hear every step the man took when he approached me after picking up a new tool. I was also able to hear with incredible detail the sounds my body was making as he slowly broke me. The faint ripping noise of tearing skin, the dull crunch of breaking bones and the sickening grinding sound of the screws being drilled through my wrists and ankles. Apparently the bastard didn't like how much I was moving while he was torturing me.

On a sick plus side I was able to learn new words and their meaning in…explicit detail thanks to his treatment, like torture, which is a word I'll remember for the rest of my days. I didn't know how long I was there as the pain and darkness made every moment feel like an eternity. All I know was that at some point when I heard the sounds of different people approaching the room they took my hearing away from me as well. I don't know if he had figured out that I was using my hearing to partially escape the pain or if it was just a precaution so I couldn't recognize the new voices if ever asked.

Regardless that's when he cut off my ears and did something to the side of my head to take away the little hearing that had remained after they were gone. As a result, my other sense once more picked up the slack and since I wasn't really used to using my nose to smell as I was using my body to just feel. You can imagine how…unpleasant that was, so I desperately tried to bury my consciousness into my sense of smell. Mind you there was nothing good to smell, as the prevailing scents were my own blood and secretions, but it was better than the alternative. Not sure how long it took but eventually it worked to about the same degree as when I focused on my hearing. So, not a total escape from the pain, but it helped take my mind at least partially off of it.

It didn't really matter in the long run, as all I was doing was prolonging the inevitable. My mind would have broken much sooner if I hadn't tried so desperately to escape the pain through my other senses. In the end by the time I managed to start distinguishing different scents and smelling things from further away my mind was on the verge of collapse. You'd have thought that when I smelt what I know now to be my rescue happening that it would have pulled me back from the edge. You'd have been wrong. It seems that I relaxed the focus and tension I was using to stay sane too quickly and my mind just snapped and I soon lost touch with the physical world.

I had been in my mind having one random disjointed memory after another pop up and torment the small bit of consciousness I had clung too. It was only the most core aspects of my personality/psyche and the overwhelming desire to live that I had managed to retain. Likely this was what enabled me to stay alive and enabled that strange presence to work on me.

When the presence first showed up in my mind I had barely noticed it, being too caught up in one of the memories from my torture at the time. But when it came back and stayed I did take notice especially after it started trying to do something to my mind.

I wasn't able to sense any bad intentions from it so I just left it alone and soon forgot about it. Some time had passed and I had basically forgotten about it until I felt it tugging on me. My instinct was to defend myself and what I first thought to do was lash out at the presence but it didn't seem to notice. Panicking slightly, I did the next thing that came to "mind" and surrounded myself with a "wall" of my darkest memories figuring whatever it was wouldn't want to experience them anymore than I did.

I wasn't sure if that was the correct response or not as while I felt the presence stop tugging on me it instead started pushing me away. Seeing as how being further away from it was likely safer than being closer I decided to let it and pretty soon it stopped and I once more forgot about it.

Eventually. I noticed that the presence was gone. I would have thought nothing of it, if something strange hadn't happened a short time later. I "woke" up which surprised me enough that I jolted my body upright and reflexively "opened" my eyes. Only the result wasn't as expected and I was actually able to see again. Fearing that it was just a dream or memory of some sort I stayed still and prayed that I wouldn't leave it yet.

When after a couple of minutes nothing changed, I was delighted but confused, so I tried to think about how I had gotten there. When I tried to recall what had happened memories came unbidden to my mind. Along with the memories came the realization that it hadn't been "me" that had experienced them but instead a more…naïve version of myself had.

I didn't know what this meant but it didn't seem like necessarily a bad thing. The other version of myself seemed happier than I was and far less damaged.

 _Maybe he doesn't have the same memories I do? Why? Maybe that's what that presence did? I doubt I'll be able to figure it out myself. It at least doesn't seem harmful to "me" and I doubt I should bring it up, regardless of the fact that these people helped me they had interacted with the "other" and might hate me like everyone else who I've met._

Deciding on my course of action I quickly scan the room and notice a man sleeping in a bed next to mine.

 _Maybe he had something to do with what happened to me?_

Shrugging mentally, I decide it wouldn't be wise to wake him up, and he didn't seem like a threat currently so I just wrote him off for now. Looking around the rest of the room I didn't notice anyone else, but when I concentrated on my senses of hearing and smell I noticed another presence that I couldn't visually find.

 _It seems to be coming from above me, maybe he's there to make sure I don't bother the man. He hasn't attacked me yet, so as long as I don't provoke him or bother the man I'm probably fine. Well seeing as I don't know if I'm able to do anything without provoking a response, maybe the best bet would be to see what happens when I sleep._

Done with my survey of the situation, I laid back down and closed my eyes. After a few minutes I soon fell asleep.

-Normal perspective-

The ANBU was a bit confused by the boy, he had just sat there for a good five minutes before looking at Inoichi for a while. Then his head flinched upwards slightly like he was keeping himself from looking up. He didn't believe that the boy could have noticed he was there. The boy was only five years old and he was a veteran ANBU. Sure he wasn't as well hidden as he could have been, but from a boy who didn't even know what a shinobi was until a few minutes ago, it was way more than enough. Writing it off as a random muscle twitch he continued watching Naruto.

After another minute of two of just sitting there, Naruto laid back down and was soon asleep once more. Deciding to let the Hokage know of the incident before he returned tomorrow, he turned his attention away from his thoughts and settled in for a long guard shift.

-Next Day-

Hiruzen was a bit worried about Naruto. After he finished breakfast and was preparing to leave his home, the ANBU he had guarding Naruto had told him about the previous day's event. He hoped the boy hadn't remembered any of his ordeal. He was still musing about the event when he reached the hospital and was pulled from his thoughts.

Resolving to bring up the event very delicately to Naruto when he saw him, he proceeded to walk towards Naruto's room. What he saw when he opened the door greatly amused him. An extremely exasperated looking Inoichi was struggling to answer the rapid fire questions Naruto was directing towards him. The questions varying from things like 'are you a shinobi' to 'why isn't your hairy spikey like mine if it's blond', he even asked him if he was actually a girl, due to his long hair.

While he inwardly chuckled, Hiruzen decided to save Inoichi any more torment and proceeded to cough lightly to get their attention.

"Ah Hokage-sama, how are you this morning?"

"I'm well, thank you Inoichi. Tell me, have you made a full recovery?"

"Hai, I've been awake for about an hour now…entertaining Naruto here."

Chuckling softly Hiruzen replied "So I saw." Turning to face Naruto he asks "and how are you today Naruto, sleep well?"

Naruto turned away from Inoichi and flashed Hiruzen a smile. "You bet ji-ji, this bed was super comfortable, I slept like a log."

 _I see_ Hiruzen thought _so he doesn't remember waking up at all then?_

Brushing aside his thoughts for now, he responded to Naruto.

"Good. I'm assuming you haven't been bothering Inoichi too much, have you?"

"Of course not ji-ji, Inoichi-san is really nice. In fact, he invited me over to his house tomorrow to play with his daughter. I never got to play with someone else before I'm super exited."

Raising an eyebrow slightly at this Hiruzen turned towards Inoichi and made an expression asking him if this was true.

Inoichi seeing the unspoken question quickly explained.

"I was talking to Naruto-kun here while we waited your arrival Hokage-sama, and found him to be a very nice young boy. My daughter doesn't have many friends her age, so I thought it would be a good idea to introduce them. I feel like they'd get along well."

Hiruzen felt that there seemed to be a bit more to the what the explanation than what he said, but resolved to wait and ask him when he presented his official report.

"I see. That seems like a wonderful idea, have you thanked Inoichi yet Naruto-kun?"

Rolling his eyes Naruto replies "Of course ji-ji, what do you take me for?"

Chucking softly Hiruzen shakes his head.

"No my boy, of course not. I just wanted to make sure. Now then how about we get out of this hospital, and then I'll treat you to some Ramen. What do you say?"

"Yatta! Thanks ji-ji I'm tired of being in here, but what's Ramen?"

Seeing the innocent, inquisitive expression on his face warmed Hiruzen's heart as he was reminded of his former protégé. Thinking about Minato brought up memories of his wife Kushina which made him chuckle a bit before causing him to smile at Naruto.

"It's a type of food Naruto, and one I have a feeling you're going to love."

"Alright if you say so ji-ji! I'll take anything as long as it's not the food the orphanage gives me."

Narrowing his eyes at this comment Hiruzen asked "What was wrong with the food at the orphanage Naruto-kun?"

Scrunching up his eyes in thought Naruto took a while to answer.

"I don't know. I can't seem to remember... only that it smelled kinda bad, tasted worse, and I felt sick lots afterwards. I don't really know what they fed me. I feel like the memory is right there…like all I need is a small push before I can find it."

Hiruzen slightly panicked at this and decided to quickly change the subject.

"That's ok Naruto-kun, don't worry about it. I have something I wanted to give to you. Since you seemed excited by the idea of being a shinobi, I brought with me some books on the basics of being a shinobi along with a few practice kunai. I'd give them to you now, but I don't think you'd want to get food on them or drop the books, do you?"

Naruto gave an excited smile to Hiruzen before frowning slightly.

"No, I guess not ji-ji."

Naruto quickly lost his frown and flashed another smile.

"Can we go get that ramen thing now, ji-ji? I'm really hungry."

"Of course we can. Are you dressed and ready to go?"

"Not yet, there was some really cool clothes sitting on the table but this dress thing was really comfortable and I didn't feel like changing yet."

"Well go get dressed quickly then, we'll leave as soon as you get back."

Naruto nods at his words and quickly grabs the pile of clothes, a pair of black shorts, sandals and an orange t-shirt, before rushing into the bathroom to change. Chucking lightly at Naruto's enthusiasm Hiruzen turned his attention back to Inoichi.

"I'll expect you in my office with a full report and prepared for questions in four hours is that clear?"

"Hai Hokage-sama."

"Good,"

Finished with the brief conversation, they didn't have to wait long before Naruto charged back into the room in his new clothes. Amusingly his shirt was backwards and he didn't seem to realize it. After fixing the shirt and telling him how to determine which side was the front, Hiruzen took Naruto's hand before they walked out of the room and towards a ramen shop by the name of Ichiraku Ramen.

The meal was amusing to say the least, as the boy seemed to have a black hole for a stomach and had instantly developed a love affair for ramen on his first bite, much like Hiruzen thought he would. A pleasant surprise turned out to be that the owner and his daughter didn't treat the boy any different from a normal child. In fact, if anything they treated him better, almost like he was a part of their family.

While Hiruzen was surprised, he didn't blame them as the boy's happy personality was infectious. It was hard not to like him, if you weren't already a biased idiot that is. The meal took a couple of hours and left his wallet much lighter than it was when he first got there, but Hiruzen felt like it was worth it.

Before they left Hiruzen, pulled the owner aside, a man named Teuchi, and told him that Naruto had had a very hard life so far, and if they could look out for him whenever he came by he'd be grateful. Teuchi, who hadn't let up his smile since they had arrived, instantly donned a serious expression. He told him that he would have done so anyways, as he was once on the same genin team as Naruto's father.

The last comment surprised Hiruzen, especially when Teuchi shoot a very quick and discreet glance towards the Hokage monument. Slightly stunned, Hiruzen could only nod before thanking the man and going back to Naruto, who was in the middle of being teased by Teuchi's daughter Ayame.

"It's time to go Naruto, make sure you properly thank them for the meal."

"Ok ji-ji. Ayame-neechan, Teuchi-ojisan thanks for the delicious food! I'll stop by again as soon as I can."

Smiling at the boy, Ayame replied "You're welcome back anytime, Naruto-kun."

Teuchi nods "Of course, with your appetite I bet you could keep us in business just by yourself, so you're more than welcome anytime."

Ayame smacks him in the back of the head, causing him to fall face first into the bar table. Huffing slightly, Ayame says "Don't treat Naruto-kun like a meal ticket."

Groaning, Teuchi gets up while rubbing his head.

"I was just kidding, Ayame-chan."

"Damn right you were."

Chuckling at the scene, Hiruzen took Naruto's hand and walked away from the ramen stand, the father/daughter argument fading into the background. They continued to walk for a couple of hours just talking, Naruto asking questions and Hiruzen answering them, before Hiruzen took them to his office. He had Naruto wait in the reception area with his secretary. He noticed, thankfully, that she seemed to instantly like the boy, and was willing to keep him company while he had his meeting with Inoichi.

"I have a meeting that I have to attend to, Naruto. Once it's done I'll take you home for the night ok?"

Naruto was busy being taught how to play janken by his secretary, so he only quickly flashed him a smile and nodded before turning his attention back to the game. Smiling softly at the scene, Hiruzen entered his office and closed the door behind him, activating the privacy seals in the process. Inoichi was already waiting for him when he entered, and gave him a quick bow before being waved off by Hiruzen.

After reaching his desk Hiruzen sunk down into his chair and took his time lighting his pipe, before focusing his attention onto Inoichi.

"Now, give me the full report and leave nothing out."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

Inoichi spent the next thirty minutes going over exactly what happened inside Naruto's mind, what actions he took to try to fix it and gave his best guesses about what he believed would happen as a result. Throughout it all, Hiruzen barely moved, and when he did it was only to tap some ash out of his pipe or put more tobacco into it. By the time Inoichi was done with his report, there were a few questions floating around in his head.

"So, the Naruto I just spent the day with is likely not the one I would have known if I met him before this incident then?"

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Best guess as to how different it is?"

"Impossible to say, his mind was so damaged and I had to fabricate so many memories and block off even more, it's possible that they aren't even the same person anymore."

Hiruzen paused at this and it was a couple of seconds before he responded.

"…I see. As troubling as it is, at least his current self doesn't seem to pose a harm to either himself or anyone else. In fact, I'd say he's quite the opposite, he's a very sweet boy if a tad on the hyperactive side. Is there a chance that his sealed memories will come back or that the he will notice the fake ones?"

"I'd agree with that assessment Hokage-same. As for the memories it is possible he will remember some of them given enough stimulus but I can't say what the consequences of such a thing happening would be. It's possible that by recalling one memory will cause all the ones I've blocked off to come back to him at once. It's also just as possible that they won't. I have never had to do this sort of procedure before, and neither has anyone else in my clan to the best to my knowledge. Thus, the weaknesses of it, and the possible consequences of certain actions, are impossible to predict.

As for him noticing the fake memories, that is impossible unless he recalls all of his sealed memories, as the fake ones often took the place of them and their unsealing would forcefully eject the implanted ones."

Nodding at the thorough explanation Hiruzen couldn't help but be displeased with the answer. Not that he doubted Inoichi's ability or his response. It just wasn't the one he was hoping for.

"Very well, if that's the case then so be it, not like we can change it now. I'm curious though, why did you invite Naruto over to play with your daughter? I know you're quite protective of her and usually don't let her interact with boys other than the Nara and Akimichi clan heirs."

Waiting a bit to answer Inoichi carefully thinks about his response.

"Hokage-sama, if I may be blunt. You are indeed correct about my protectiveness of my daughter. What you should understand though is that in order to repair his mind how I did I was basically privy to every memory he had. All I'm willing to say on the matter is that it would have driven any normal person my age, shinobi or civilian, to insanity long before his mind broke. He has had not a single positive interaction until today, and without any I'm afraid he will break again. In addition, him regularly coming to visit my daughter gives me a pretext to check his mind to insure its stability on a regular basis. I also recommend you take him out of that orphanage before I go there and burn down with the staff inside…Hokage-sama."

Narrowing his eyes at the last comment Hiruzen remembers Naruto's comment about the food at the orphanage and the conclusions he reaches are enough to make him subconsciously flare his killing intent, something which caused Inoichi to break out into cold sweat. Rummaging through his desk for a couple of minutes, Hiruzen finally pulls out a piece of paper.

"Your actions and foresight are commendable as is your compassion for the boy. As for your suggestion I happen to agree with you and just so happen to have a solution. Unfortunately, this will mean he'll be living alone, but at least this way he won't have any more…incidents."

"I am grateful for your praise and your decisions regarding the boy's living arrangements. I only have one more suggestion, which would be to have someone you trust deliver groceries to him regularly. From what I've "seen" he has been given a rather…poor welcome at the few stores he's been in, and I don't trust them to treat him fairly."

Narrowing his eyes once again, Hiruzen replied "Agreed, now I'll send you a copy of Naruto's new address so you can pick him up tomorrow, as I'm not confident in his ability to find your house."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"You are dismissed."

Bowing slightly to the Hokage Inoichi exits the office, followed shortly by Hiruzen who upon seeing his secretary with Naruto makes a mental note to give her a raise. Naruto was sitting on her lap while she was endeavoring to teach him to read. He later learned from his secretary that Naruto hadn't been taught anything before that point, and the only reason he knew how to speak was from picking up words from the various conversations he's heard people having around him.

Seeing the Hokage leave his office Naruto instantly flashed him his megawatt smile and waved at him.

"Hey ji-ji Suu-neechan was teaching me what these weird symbols were; I didn't know there was a way of speaking quietly."

His comment caused both Inoichi and Hiruzen to both frown at the same time. Looking over towards his secretary, he gives her a grateful smile before turning back to Naruto.

"I see Naruto-kun, make sure you thank her properly then. I'm sure she won't mind continue teaching you at a later date."

Turning to give his secretary a questioning look while saying the last part. It warmed his heart greatly when he saw her smile and shake her head to signify she didn't mind.

"I have ji-ji. You gona take me back to the orphanage now?" Naruto asked with a sad expression on his face.

"Actually Naruto-kun I've found you a new place to live, so you won't be going back to the orphanage ever again. Unfortunately, you'll be living alone, but I'll make sure to drop by as often as I can and you can have your friends over whenever you want. You'll have your food items delivered to your regularly and will be given a small monthly stipend while you live there. I'll have someone fetch your things from the orphanage and bring them there tomorrow."

Naruto brightened up considerably after hearing this and gave Hiruzen the happiest smile he's ever seen.

"Really ji-ji!? That's awesome thank you. Don't bother with the orphanage, I didn't have any of my own stuff anyways."

Frowning slightly at the last statement, Hiruzen resolved himself with having a little "chat" with Naruto's old orphanage as soon as I could.

"Right. Well, say goodbye to Suu-san, Naruto-kun. I'll be taking you to your new home myself. Also say goodnight to Inoichi, he'll pick you up at your home tomorrow to take you to his house."

"Ok, bye Suu-neechan, bye Inoichi-san!"

Waving goodbye to the adults in the room, Naruto walks with Hiruzen to his new home itching with excitement. After a long walk (to Naruto) they arrive at a slightly run down looking apartment building.

"I'm living here ji-ji? Cool! Which room is mine?"

"Any one you wish Naruto-kun. Technically, this entire building is your home, and you can live in any of the rooms. If you want to change anything in the future, you'll have to either do it yourself or pay for it with your own money. Someone will come by semi regularly to insure that the building is in working condition and is liveable, but other than that you're on your own I'm afraid."

Giving him a foxy grin Naruto replies "That's ok ji-ji. It'll be a hundred times better than the orphanage, and I'm used to being alone anyway."

This made Hiruzen give the boy a sad smile before he responded.

"As long as you're ok Naruto-kun. Before I forget, here are the books and practice kunai I promised you. Unfortunately, I didn't know you couldn't read, but these are still yours and you can read them when you are able."

"Thanks a bunch ji-ji, this has been the best day of my life."

Naruto practically blinded Hiruzen with the smile he gave him after his comment.

Chuckling softly but with a sad expression, Hiruzen bent down and envelops the boy in a hug, surprising Naruto. For the first few seconds Naruto just stood there uncertain about what to do, before he tried to return the hug while crying into Hiruzen's robes. After a few minutes Naruto calmed down, and Hiruzen released him, standing back up. Ruffling Naruto's hair, he gave him a smile before turning to leave.

"I'll visit when I can Naruto, or you're free to come to my office whenever you want, although I might not be able to see you all the time."

"Thanks ji-ji….I mean it."

"Of course Naruto-kun."

Naruto watches Hiruzen leave before picking up the items he left him, consisting of a few books, practice kunai and a ring of keys which he assumed were for the building. Walking to the building he enters the first room he reaches and sets his stuff down on a table before locating the bathroom and taking care of business. Afterwards, seeing as there was no food in the apartment he decided to just go to sleep, in order to more quickly experience the next day. Taking off his clothes, as he had no pajamas and didn't want to get his only clothing dirtier than he had to, he crawled into bed and went to sleep.

Only a couple of minutes later "he" woke up again.

 **AN: And that's the chapter I hope you liked it. Slightly longer than last chapter (about 5000 words compared to about 4,500 words) but doesn't really matter. Had a lot to say and a lot of key points I wanted to bring up. I hope you're starting to get a bit of an idea as to why the story has the name I gave it. Personally I find coming up with a story title much harder than writing the story itself. Don't expect frequent updates as my writing is extremely dependent on my mood. I had wanted to write this right after the first chapter but by the time I was done with the prologue it was already 2 am so. Anyways still more childhood and the next chapter will have more of the same. I believe it'll give my story the necessary depth and it will be important for future plot points. Next chapter will likely have a few times skips in it at some point so he won't be 5 for much longer.**

 **Thanks for reading**

 **RenWaya**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: So if anyone is curious my girlfriend has been my beta reader and editor for my chapters. She gives me a bit of insight into how others will view my story which helps me adjust certain things to make each chapter better. Also there'd likely be a lot more grammar errors if she didn't (not sure if there are any at all tbh) as I find it difficult to find them in my own work. Anyways hope last chapter settled some questions you had about the prologue while having even more take their place. I like to keep you guys entertained and coming back for more. Expect a bit more buildup from this chapter along with a few key plot points. I know I said there'd be likely be time skips this chapter but I ended up writing more than I thought so no long time jump this chapter. Sorry/not sorry for those hoping for a look at older Naruto but this is the way it turned out and I'm personally happy with it.**

 **Side note please don't expect the updates to be as quick as they've been all the time. I have no idea how long this'll last as my writing depends on my mood and that is always fluctuating. I do promise not to drop the story until I reach a point that I deem it to be complete.**

 **That's it enjoy the chapter.**

Disclaimer don't own Naruto hell; I don't even take him out to dinner.

-Chapter 2: Hidden beneath the surface-

The rush of memories he got when he woke up was disorienting to say the least, and it took him a few minutes of just laying still before he was able to think. While he was "asleep" he hadn't been able to notice the passage of time but it seemed like it had only been a day since he was first free. His time "asleep" passed much like it had before he was able to "wake up", with him constantly reliving his memories as they randomly came to him. Needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant of activities, but he had felt oddly detached when he viewed them, as if he was watching someone else experience those things.

It was the same way that he felt when he obtained the memories from his other self. He knew what the other felt when he was with the old man and the other people he met that day, but that was all it was, knowledge. Even though he saw everything through the same eyes and "experienced" it with the same body, there was no emotional response to the kindness his other self was shown.

Before he would have felt the same way his other self had, an almost painful level of joy and happiness from even the most mundane of kind actions. Now all it brought him were questions. Why were they being kind? Why had they seemingly rescued him? Was this like the other times? Was it a trick? Usually these questions would make him sad and he'd stop thinking about it and just enjoy the experience even if it turned out to be fake later on. However, all he felt were more questions and a slight feeling of caution, which oddly enough didn't disturb him and actually felt right in a way.

While his thoughts didn't bother him, he decided to stop this line of thinking for the moment as it wasn't productive and he'd likely be unable to figure it out by himself. Getting out of bed he idly noticed his distinct lack of clothes and was confused before the memory and reasons for this came to him.

 _Maybe some memories aren't as distinct as others and require more focus to recall?_

Shrugging to himself, he filed the thought away for later as he quickly did a check on his body, something he had wanted to do when he woke up the first time but hadn't been able to without drawing attention to himself. Heading to where he remembered where the bathroom was located his checked himself over.

 _Eyes are there and seem the same. Ears look the same but feel slightly tougher, maybe slightly longer? Fingers are back and seem stronger and more flexible, same with toes. No visible scarring which much like the regrown appendages is surprising but thinking about it lead to concrete answers at this time. Basically I look exactly the same as before I was tortured._

Once more he noticed the lack of any feelings the thought provoked, all he had was the vague feeling of rightness. Walking out of the bathroom he decided to check on the items the old man had given him. Entering the living room, he spotted where he had left the stuff on the table and made his way towards them. Sorting through the items, he put what he figured to be the practice weapons to one side and the books on the other.

Much like his other self, he wasn't able to read, but with his perfect memory he was able to recall all the letters that the woman had tried to teach his other self. Looking at the books, he was able to piece together a few of the words on them, but not enough for any of them to make sense to him. He made a mental note to try and find a way to learn more words. While he could remember almost every word he's ever heard the majority of them didn't come with any meaning he could figure out.

Shelving the latest in the long line of ideas to pop into his head, he decided to check out the rest of the building and search for anything potentially useful. Picking up the keys he left the room and explored the rest of the apartment complex. He hadn't bothered to put on any clothes as he had seen no point as he didn't seem to feel embarrassed and there wasn't really a practical reason for him to do so at the time. During his tour he discovered very little- just a few broken items he saw no use for, left over trash and a few odd articles of clothing that were much too big for him.

He did however find a few pieces of money in a couple of the rooms, not much but he had a few coins. Being the same as his counterpart he didn't know how to count let alone recognize written numbers so he didn't know how much he had, but decided to stash it in a safe location for now. He figured based on how different his alternate-self acted it seemed likely they had different views on what mattered, and figured having his "own" stuff was a decent idea. Luckily, it seemed like his counterpart didn't remember his actions when he was awake so there wasn't much threat of his stuff being found.

While he was exploring he had noticed another presence, but unlike the one he had encountered before he wasn't able to locate where it was. He knew it was there but couldn't find the exact location even using his senses of sound and smell together. Since there wasn't much he could do about it and seeing as how the presence hadn't moved, as far as he could tell, he decided to forget about it for the moment.

Done exploring the building he went back to "his" room and decided to go to sleep seeing as he couldn't think of anything else to do. He had decided not put the old man's gifts back the way he found it in order to see the reaction of his counterpart. Within minutes he was asleep and this time no one "woke up".

-ANBU perspective-

I had been asked by Hokage-sama himself to take this assignment as he knew I had no ill feelings towards the boy, and would guard him to the best of my ability. It also helped that I was one of his most trusted and skilled subordinates. The assignment was a far cry from the ones I was usually assigned, but I didn't mind as it was a nice change of pace.

 _Also_ I admitted to myself _you want to make sure nothing happens to the boy again, he's experienced enough bad things in his life to go through something simple protection would spare him from again._

Still the boy was certainly interesting. He seemed completely unaware of what had happened to him and had acted like any regular child all day. An extremelyhyper active and expressive child, but normal none the less. It was a bit surprising however when he came out his new home less than half an hour after falling asleep. It was even more surprising when you consider the fact that he wasn't even wearing clothes.

I hadn't noticed him at first, as I was focusing my attention on the buildings perimeter, so I wasn't exactly sure how long he had been outside. When I did notice him he had just come out of the furthest apartment from the one he had chosen to sleep in. He looked a bit dirty but it was hard to tell for sure in the dark night.

What was interesting to note was the fact that after I noticed him he proceeded to completely stop moving for a solid ten minutes. He had appeared to be searching for someone and I had briefly entertained the notion that he had noticed my presence. I didn't believe that to be the case but I still decided to file the thought away for future reference and not just dismiss it out of hand. Regardless he eventually resumed moving and returned back to his room and quickly went to sleep.

The odd incident over, I settled back in to my hiding spot and turned my attention back to my duties, making a mental note to inform Hokage-sama of the incident when I made my report.

-Normal perspective: next day-

When he woke up he was a bit muddled headed but was still surprised by how dirty he felt but shrugged it off as being left over filth from the bed. He then proceeded to take a shower before putting on his one set of clothes. Walking out in the living room/kitchen area he noticed a few bags of groceries on the table. He had briefly noted that the stuff the Hokage had given him was not the same as he left it, but the thought quickly left his mind when he noticed that there was ramen in the grocery bags, which he promptly consumed.

It wasn't long after he had finished eating when he heard a knock on the door. Opening the door, he was happy to see it was Inoichi and flashed him a wide grin.

"Morning Inoichi-san, are you here to take me to your house?"

"Good morning Naruto-san, yes I am. Are you ready to go? Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

"Yup and yup! I'm ready to go dattebayo!"

The last phrase made Inoichi sweat drop a little but he dismissed it as a rather strange personality quirk.

"Alright then, follow me Naruto-san."

While Inoichi was no longer just neutral to the boy, he was a formal person by nature to those that weren't family and wasn't as visibly kind as the Hokage. As a result, he didn't talk as affectionately towards the boy and had kept a neutral expression on his face throughout their small dialogue.

Naruto hadn't seemed to notice, whether this was because he didn't care or just didn't realize it Inoichi didn't know. He had acted the exact same way he had with Hiruzen the day before, except since he wasn't holding Inoichi's hand he was running circles around him peppering him with questions, which Inoichi did his best to answer.

He had told the boy a bit about his house, family and how he was a shinobi (which Naruto seemed to find cool). He had also asked why he was sleeping in the same room as him at the hospital to which Inoichi had answered with a vague "I was treating you and got tired" before steering the conversation to a different topic.

It was a very long walk for Inoichi but it wasn't particularly unpleasant. It was hard to be annoyed with the boy with his cheerful attitude and seemingly endless curiosity. It didn't hurt that he had experienced all the boy's memories and knew that the endless questions were at least in part due to his lack of social contact throughout his life, even if he had implanted fake memories to change this.

After what seemed like an hour but was only about ten minutes they arrived at the Yamanaka Flower Shop. Naruto had at first been confused by this, but Inoichi quickly told him that he was the head of the Yamanaka clan and that the flower shop was just the front part of their home. Naruto thought it was kind of cool to live in a flower shop, as he liked plants himself, so he was excited when he heard that Inoichi's family lived "in" a flower shop.

Entering the shop, they got a hearty welcome by the clan members before they noticed who had entered alongside their clan head. Inviting and happy expressions almost instantly cooled into more neutral or sometimes down right angry looks. A few of the angrier ones were about to speak in protest but were silenced before they said anything by the hardest glare they've ever seen from their clan head.

Naruto seem oblivious to the change in atmosphere, or if he wasn't, chose to simply ignore it. He had done the same on their walk here when they encountered the relatively small number of people who were up at this time. Naruto continued to ask questions to Inoichi, who by this time had returned his expression back to normal, only this time they were focused more on the shop itself and the flowers in it.

Inoichi decided to add a bit of feeling into his face to send a subtle message to the staring clan members and answered all of Naruto's questions with a slightly gentle looking face. Catching the subtle hint, the clan members in the shop stopped staring and got back to their jobs, although some did so a bit begrudgingly. Inoichi, with Naruto in tow, quickly passed through the shop and entered into his family's living areas on the modestly sized Yamanaka compound.

The Yamanakas weren't the biggest, wealthiest or strongest clan in Konoha but they were one of the first clans to join the village and were well respected by the inhabitants. Their clan was never the most populous and would likely never would be but they still maintained an appropriate compound for a clan of their stature and size.

Walking into his home Inoichi quickly ran into his wife. His wife was a retired kunoichi, having left her combat role after the birth of their daughter, and knew Naruto's secret. She was one of the few who didn't hate him for what he held and actually respected him for it. Most shinobi, at least the clan ones, didn't actually think the boy was the Kyuubi and hated him for much simpler reasons. They needed a scapegoat for all the grief and loss they felt that day, and he was the easiest one to blame, as sickening as she found that.

Aki Inoichi hadn't lost anyone she was close to during the Kyuubi attack, which she was quite fortunate and thankful for. So she had no need to treat Naruto as a scapegoat and never thought of him poorly. Of course, she had also never met the boy before, as she was often busy taking care of her daughter Ino and never saw him when she did leave the compound.

Naturally, she knew of her husband's feelings toward the boy, and knew that although he didn't treat him badly because of the pain he felt like so many others, he did view him as an unpleasant reminder of his loss. Thus, she was surprised to see Inoichi walk into their home with a strangely gentle expression on his face while he talked to the Kyubi's container. She was fairly certain of who he was, seeing as there wasn't anyone else she knew of in the village with blond hair, blue eyes, and whisker marks on their cheeks.

Although she was surprised, she didn't let that stop her from going up to greet her husband, and the boy who seemed to have just now noticed her presence. Seeing her approach, Naruto adopted a surprised expression on his face and turned back to Inoichi.

"Wow Inoichi-san your daughter is very pretty; she must take after her mom!"

Hearing this Inoichi face faults and Aki starts laughing. Recovering slightly Inoichi stands back up and responds.

"This isn't my daughter Naruto-san; this is my wife Aki."

"Hello Naruto-kun, he is correct I'm indeed his wife although you're not the first to think otherwise."

Naruto's mouth gapes open like a fish as he shouts out.

"Ehhh!? No way you're too young to be married to this old guy."

At the old comment Inoichi's eyebrow twitches severely. Chuckingly softly Aki smiles at the boy.

"Actually believe it or not I'm actually a year older than he is."

"What! But you don't look that ol-mph."

Luckily Inoichi slams his hand over Naruto's mouth before he was able to finish that sentence. While his wife did look extremely young for her age nobody like being told by a child that they were old. Despite his wife's generally kind dispassion by the slightly dangerous aura she was emitting he knew he silently thanked his reflexes for saving the boy. Coughing slightly to dispel the current atmosphere Inoichi addresses his wife.

"ehem, anyways dear I brought Naruto-san over to have a small playdate with Ino, I felt that they would get along great and Ino needs more friends her age."

Aki raises her eyebrow slightly but gives no other visible indication of her surprise. She knew how protective her husband was towards her daughter when it came to boys, even at her young age. To have brought over one to play willingly and even looking like he liked the boy was surprising enough, let alone the fact that she knew who it was. Deciding to question him later while the children were playing, she replied.

"Oh, Ino is out in the garden right through those doors Naruto-san. I'm sure you'll get along great. Honey before you go supervise I need your help with something ok?"

Naruto quickly thanked her before running off towards the garden, which Aki pointed him towards after he stopped and sheepishly asked where it was. Inoichi knew his wife would ask questions, and he didn't try and avoid her curiosity. Once Naruto was gone Aki turned back towards her husband before giving him an inquisitive look. Nodding slightly at the gesture, Inoichi only responds with two words "my office" which they both promptly walked towards.

After entering his office Inoichi sealed the door and activated the privacy seals in order to keep anyone from hearing their conversation. Seeing this caused Aki to become even more curious about what he had to tell her, but she decided to settle into one of the chairs in the room and wait for him to start the conversation. It took him a couple minutes of what appeared to her to be deep thinking before he opened his mouth. Leaning forward slightly, Aki focused all her attention on what her husband was going to say, believing, rightly so, that the words would be extremely important. Oh how right she was. 

"Dear, you know how I just got back from a four-day long mission yesterday?"

"Yes, what about it? They never told me what you were doing, all I could figure out was that it was an S-class mission given directly by the Hokage."

Inoichi was a bit surprised that she knew even that much as only a few people knew about what he was doing and all of those were the Hokage's most trust subordinates. Chalking it up to gossip she heard from some of her ANBU acquaintances he nodded towards her.

"That's correct, it is as you've heard. I had asked permission from the Hokage to tell the details to my family as many would be curious as to the boy's presence with me. Hokage-sama agreed but told me to limit the information as much as possible, as someone with this knowledge and less than benign intent could severely damage the boy."

Widening her eyes at what her husband said Aki asked.

"You mean-. "

"Yes the boy was my mission. I had to do a four-day long mind walk in order to fix his mind after a certain incident left it completely shattered."

If possible Aki's eyes got even bigger and her next questions came as a quiet whisper.

"How were you able to fix something like that? How is it even possible to fix something like that? What could even cause the mind of a five-year-old child to break like that? How can he seem so happy and normal if something that bad happened to him?"

"Honestly I can't bring myself to speak of what caused it. If you want me to I can sure you some of his memories but I refuse to show you the worse as those almost drove ME insane. As to being able to fix it, honestly I couldn't. At least, not fully. I was able to block off the worst memories and piece together those that remained while adding in and altering memories as needed to stabilize the whole thing. Even after all that I know he lost at least some of his old personality and traits, but to what extent I have no way of knowing."

His wife's eyes started to tear up slightly at what he said and she was extremely hesitant to find out exactly what had happened to the boy. If Aki was anything it wasn't timid or weak and while she knew it would be unpleasant at best she had to know what could make even her stoic husband refuse to speak about.

"I wish to know."

Eyeing his wife, he noted her resolved expression, and while he personally wanted her to decline his offer he knew when he brought it up what her response would be. He almost regretted bringing it up, but he knew she had the right to know and that her curiosity wouldn't let her rest until she did. Sighing audibly, he starred into her eyes before nodding slightly. Reaching out his hand he told his wife.

"I'll share a limited number of his memories with you but I need you to know that you can never even hint at them to Naruto, as if he's prodded all his memories might break from their containment and shatter his mind once more as a result. I will also be keeping a close eye on your mental state and If I see that the strain is becoming too much I will immediately cancel the process no matter how much you object. Is that clear?"

Aki's stoic expression wavered briefly before she quickly regained her resolve and nodded to her husband. Seeing this Inoichi signed once again before activating one of his clan's jutsu and placing his hand on his wife's head. It took only a few minutes before Inoichi cancelled the technique after which his wife collapsed sobbing uncontrollably as the knowledge of what happened to Naruto assaulted her mind. With a tired and sad expression on his face, Inoichi gathered his wife in his arms before holding her to his chest, comforting her while she cried out against the injustice of the world.

-Three hours later-

Naruto had the second happiest day of his life and he was extremely grateful for whatever he did to have this happen to him. Inoichi had been right, and Ino and Naruto got along great, they were both boisterous, happy and expressive children and shared a few common interests and traits. While Ino was a bit bossy, Naruto didn't really mind as she wasn't mean spirited about it and never made him do something he truly hated. Ino for her part liked Naruto, and thought that while he was a bit simple he was very kind and listened to her.

They had spent the last three hours just hanging out in the flower garden or playing games than Ino had to explain to him as he never played with anyone before. He especially like tag as he got to run around a lot and get dirty on purpose while laughing with his new friend. Unfortunately, it was time for him to go as Inoichi said he was apparently supposed to meet Suu-neechan for lessons today. He hadn't known about this, as it was a last minute decision made by the Hokage and relayed by a messenger.

Naruto was slightly sad to be leaving but instantly brightened up when Inoichi, prompted by his now recovered wife, asked him if he wanted to come over again in a couple of days. Of course he instantly agreed and gave a loud cheer at this. Before he left, he and Inoichi went to Inoichi's study where he was given a checkup to "make sure he was fine". Naruto didn't know how he did that when all he did was put his hand on his head but wrote it off as a cool shinobi thing.

Waving goodbye to his new friend Ino and her mom, Naruto was taken by Inoichi to the Hokage's office where he was then dropped off with Suu. Suu, as it turned out, had been given a break from her duties for the rest of the day to help teach him how to read and other similar things. Naruto wasn't really found of learning all the stuff she was trying to teach him as he found it hard to pay attention or sit still. He didn't really mind though as Suu was really nice and he liked having someone spend time with him.

Before they started he was given some previously prepared food for lunch as they figured the Hokage had figured he likely hadn't gotten any before he left the Yamanakas. Much to Naruto's delight, but Suu's displeasure, the meal was ramen. Naruto didn't understand why she was unhappy, but when he asked all she said was that it wasn't healthy for him and he wouldn't grow properly if that's all he ate. Naruto didn't get it though, as how could something so good be bad for you.

Naruto spent the rest of the day being taught by Suu, some of which he sort of understood like different words, basic counting and letters. Others, like nutrition and manners, flew completely over his head, but he didn't care as he wasn't bothered by stuff he didn't understand. After his lessons were done for the day, Suu took him back to his home before saying goodnight.

Naruto was a bit sad to be left alone again but he was also really happy with the day he had. Looking forward to the next day he went inside his home, where he was excited to see a new bag full of clothes on the table. All the shirts were orange but he didn't mind, as he thought orange was cool since it was the color of the first shirt he was given. Putting on the single pair of pajamas after taking a shower to clean himself off, Naruto ate a quick dinner, once more of Ramen, before looking over the stuff Suu had given him.

In order to help him learn Suu had given him a few basic books on learning how to read, count, basic math and other helpful things. There was also something she called a dictionary which apparently had a bunch of words in it but it looked really complicated so he ignored it. He tried to do the lessons that she had suggested he do but he just didn't have the patience for it so he decided to play around with the stuff the Hokage had given him. He didn't really know what to do so he just started throwing them inexpertly at the wall.

This continued for a whole hour before he got bored and decided to call it a night. Crawling into bed he was quickly asleep, and like clockwork "he" woke up a few minutes later.

-Naruto Perspective-

Once more assaulted by a days' worth of memories, I vowed to find a way to improve this,

 _Maybe I can somehow experience things as my other self does them? Something to think about at the least. Now then, while my other self might not enjoy learning, I at least see the use of it. Quite convenient to get what I need to expand my knowledge not a day after I wanted it. While I acknowledge the fact that these are useful I still don't feel anything when I think about Suu, I know my counterpart views her as basically a mother figure already but I still feel nothing. Odd but I don't have enough knowledge to make a guess as to the reasons yet so no point in thinking about it._

Finally coming out of my thoughts, I leave the bed and enter the living room. I waste no time and head straight for the learning materials left on the table and get to work. Thanks to the day's lessons and my memory, I am quickly able to read at a basic level and at least sound out most words. The dictionary was extremely convenient and lucky to have, as anytime I didn't understand a word I was able to find the meaning. Although this often led me to go off on long tangents as unknown words led to more unknown words which needed to be understood before the previous one was and so on.

I would say I enjoyed it, but I had no real feelings on the matter, I just knew it was in my best interest to learn what I could as fast as I could. By the time it was almost morning I was able to count to a decently high number for someone my age and perform most math on numbers below the ones I knew. I was also able to read all the words in the "Teaching Children How to Read" book that Suu had given and had started on the slightly more advanced one, though progress wasn't as far as I liked.

Deciding it was time to "sleep" I figured that tomorrow would also be interesting, as I didn't know if staying up all night would affect my counterpart at all. I was almost excited for the next time I would "wake up" but still no such feeling came. The closest I got was a feeling of mild interest in tomorrow. Settling in to sleep, I was out in only a couple of minutes.

-Two months later: ANBU perspective-

The boy was a mystery to him. During the day he was a very happy, energetic young boy who was grateful for even the smallest bit of benign attention he received. By night he studied for hours on end without rest, and was basically the opposite of Naruto. Calm, collected and ate only the healthiest and most nutritional of foods regardless of taste.

What's more there seemed to be no adverse reaction to him not getting any sleep at all, as during the day he was as energetic as usual. After the first couple of days of this I had decided that the Hokage needed to know of this before I was scheduled to report in, so I made a shadow clone which I ordered to immediately inform him of the situation.

Needless to say he was concerned, but when he asked Naruto what he was doing at night the boy seemed to have no knowledge of what he was walking about. Naruto also didn't seem to know any of what his nighttime-self learned and was still struggling to learn how to read when the other already knew how to write.

The Hokage had Inoichi look at him the next time he had visited his house, but Inochi could only tell the Hokage that Naruto did not in fact have any memories of what his other self was doing at night. The best guess he had was that it was a split personality caused by the repairs he had made to the boy's mind. Naturally there was concern about the consequences of this but they eventually decided not to confront either personality about this as it might cause damage to Naruto's mind.

Of course just because they decided he wouldn't be confronted didn't mean they weren't going to be cautious. Naruto, much to his delight, went over to the Yamanakas every other day to play with Ino and be checked up on Inoichi. So far nothing had been found.

I, on the other hand was told to more closely monitor his nighttime self. He was free to do anything he wanted as long as it didn't hurt anyone else but he was to be watched constantly and a report should be given of his activities every morning. I'm still not certain, but he seemed to have noticed when I started watching him more closely. The only visible response was a slight twitch whenever I got close and a small tensing of his shoulders. I'm confident he can't find my exact location but I do believe he knows vaguely that I'm close.

Still, so far it had been an uneventful two months, as all he ever seemed to do was eat highly nutritious food (we had taken to delivering only ramen to Naruto during the day as he never ate any of the other groceries, and dropped off the healthy stuff at night as that night Naruto never ate anything not health) and study. Last night he had finished reading all his books including the dictionary and the shinobi books that the Hokage had given him and tonight for the first time he was leaving the house. If I had to guess, he was going somewhere to try and unlock his chakra, but I'd withhold judgement for now.

I didn't know where he was going, probably because he didn't either if I had to guess. He was probably looking for somewhere secluded if he was indeed trying to unlock his chakra. However, he didn't seem to be having much luck and somehow managed to end up near the Hyuga compound. I prayed he didn't do anything stupid as the Hyuga as a whole seemed to generally dislike the boy and he didn't want to deal with the hassle of dealing with an irate Hyuga.

Speaking of Hyugas, I wonder if they managed to reach a deal with Kumo ambassador that arrived today yet. I hope so, trade between our villages will help keep Konoha safe.

Unfortunately, I had gotten too wrapped up in my thoughts, and didn't notice the black figure with a sack on his back before it ran into Naruto. I was only pulled out of my thoughts by the scream of a small girl and the startled shout of a man. By the time I noticed it was too late, as the man had reacted on instinct and drew a kunai before lunging at Naruto. All I could think of as I raced to get to the man, was that I had failed Naruto and I would make the man suffer for killing him.

 **AN: So that's the chapter, hope you enjoyed it. Bit more of build up this chapter and setting up for future plot points. Don't hate me for the cliffhanger. Next chapter will wrap up this last scene and some stuff related to it before the story kicks off a bit more. The identity of the ANBU agent will be revealed next chapter most likely and two free internet cookies to anyone who can correctly guess his identity. Umm not much else to say but thanks for reading my story.**

 **RenWaya**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Yo, Ren here with another chapter of Shattered Mind, Damaged Soul. I seem to be making each chapter slightly longer than the last for some reason . . Ah well doesn't really matter and more for you guys to read no? After this chapter story will be picking up, you won't be stuck with 5-year-old Naruto any longer and some "cooler" stuff will happen. Enjoy the chapter.**

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto otherwise he'd never were orange, nowhere near my favorite color.

 **Bold is for Jutsu names and kyuubi speak** (some basic or common jutsu like henge, shunsin and kawarimi won't be as).

 _Italics are for thoughts._

-Chapter 3: Consequences of a Moonlight Stroll-

-Naruto Perspective-

The last couple months had been productive, and I had finally mastered the basic materials my counterpart had been given to learn. His studies, on the other hand, hadn't fared as well as my own. He did no studying or self-learning at all, and what he did learn had to be explained to him multiple times before he even grasped the basic context. Apparently he did not have the same level of access to our mental facilities as I did, which was an interesting question to ponder.

On the other hand, he seemed far more adept in social circumstances than I would have been, and seemed to be able to make friends as easily as I learned new concepts. In the past two months he had played with the Ino girl whenever the opportunity arose, and as a result was able to meet more kids the same age. They seemed to be some of the other clan heirs that had good relations with Ino's family, and Naruto was able to become friends with both of them within minutes of meeting them.

I'm not sure how he did it, even with access to all the same memories and actually experiencing the event as it happened. I found both the lazy and fat boys confusing, as they seemed to lack any motivation and had to be all but forced by Ino to play with them. My experiments into trying to get rid of the sudden memory surge had led to success about a month ago, although the solution wasn't quite what I expected.

The solution I came up with was to simply experience the memories as they came, as blocking off the memories in some way wasn't an option, since I didn't believe it prudent to not know what my other half was up to. I wasn't able to come up with any way of accomplishing this at first, and the few things I did try had a negligible result. It wasn't till the beginning of this month that something just happened.

I still don't know the exact trigger for what happened. All I do know is that while I was more or less trying to make my mind bend to my will I suddenly started experiencing sensations. Figuring this to be my closest bet to getting what I wanted, I focused more and the next thing I knew I was back in my body. Unlike when I "woke up", however, I wasn't in control, which was very disorienting for the first couple of days. I experienced everything that my other did while he was doing it. I felt every sensation, "heard" all his thoughts (which got a bit tiresome after a while) and knew what emotions he felt and the reasons for them at all times. I still didn't actually "feel" how he felt but I did know somehow what he did feel and why, which was strange but not something I could change.

I was still able to form my own thoughts while this was happening, but there was a very odd and uncomfortable sensation when I did. As a result, I more or less experienced things like a highly detailed "dream" while my higher functions, for lack of a better word, turned off. I could still use them if I so desired, but I preferred not to as it served no real purpose. Another thing that had improved was my vocabulary. Thanks to the fact that I didn't seem able to feel bored and my perfect memory, I was able to read through the entire dictionary in a little under seven weeks.

Once I had gone through all the "basic" knowledge, I started reading the books the Hokage had given to my other, something he had completely forgotten about. The books were easy for me to comprehend with my expanded pool of knowledge, and yesterday I had finished reading through them all. Therefore, tonight I had decided to try and unlock my chakra, which was the most vital thing for a shinobi to possess. I didn't have either a positive or negative opinion on being a shinobi, although I'm not sure if I could if I wanted to, but I thought the training would be the smartest thing to do in order to protect myself.

Unfortunately, while my counterpart was nowhere near as observant or intelligent as me, I didn't doubt even he would notice the signs of physical training on his own body, so that was out. He wouldn't think natural changes from growing older strange, which wouldn't really happen if I wasn't around to give our body the things it actually required to do so, but injuries from physical training (and the benefits they'd give) would be remarked upon. Having no way of knowing what his reaction would be to this or to him starting to notice my existence, which could come as a result of noticing those kinds of things, I decided to give up on this portion of training.

Luckily there isn't any physical evidence of training with chakra beyond potentially feeling exhausted, something which our body didn't seem to do regardless of not getting any "sleep", so it was something I could do without threat from my other-self. Of course, there was the presence that had been watching me the past two months to worry about. I still hadn't been able to find out exactly who or what it was, but I did know that whatever it was it had started watching me much more closely after my first night of studying.

It had done nothing so far beyond just being there, and I didn't believe it would become an obstruction to my activities judging by its lack of action so far. It hadn't even done anything beyond follow me after I had left the apartment, so it didn't think I was a threat for the moment. In a village where the majority of people hate you and actively try to kill you however, it's better to err on the side of caution.

Still, my search for a secluded area to train in had been unsuccessful so far. I had never been outside the apartment since I first got there, and my other only went to two locations when he went out, neither of which had an area that was suitable near them. So I was left wandering the village aimlessly, which wasn't inherently bad as it did serve to expand and fill in my mental map of the town. It did not, however, help me in accomplishing my set task of trying to unlock my chakra.

It was these thoughts that mulled around inside my head as I was walking past a rather large and expensive looking compound. I idly noted the lack of noise coming from it, as I knew that such a large compound had to belong to a clan and from what I had read they all had at least some guards up at this hour, not even considering the fact that they were all ninja clans. The thought was only briefly touched upon, however, as I didn't see much use in thinking about it.

Of course this led me to be caught unprepared when I saw a figure jump out of the compound and into my path. Normally I would have detected at least the hint of another presence before they got that close, but that's what happens when you get lost in your own thoughts, something that still happened to me on occasion regardless of my…uniqueness. The figure appeared to be a grown man, was covered entirely in black cloth, and carried a sack about my size over his shoulder.

Apparently he was just as startled by me as I was of him however the difference was he was apparently a shinobi…and was armed. Right as he pulled out a weapon similar to one of the practice kunai the Hokage had given my counterpart, the sound of a young girl screaming came from his direction. I figured it to be from the sack he carried, and it caused the man to let out an angry and surprised shout of "Shit!", which was a word I didn't know as it hadn't appeared in the dictionary.

Of course these idle thoughts were floating around only the back of my mind, as I had realized the situation I was in as soon as he pulled out a weapon. He was going to try to kill me for some reason. I believed it to be because I had seen him, but in a village when people randomly try to kill you for no discernable reason it's kind of hard to be sure.

The man moved faster than anything I've ever seen before, and all I caught was the dull glimmer of moonlight reflecting of the blade as it sped towards my throat. Luckily it was me in this situation and not my counterpart as I was also apparently incapable of being afraid and thus didn't freeze up leaving me a small opportunity to save myself.

The man was much too fast to avoid and I couldn't stay alive without taking damage, so I did the only logical solution I could come up with. I put my hand in the path of the blade. Luckily for me the man hadn't been expecting me to be able to move, probably thought that a kid would be too stunned and scared to be able to think let alone act, and thus wasn't able to react in time to avoid my "guard".

Good news was that my plan worked and it saved my life, bad news was the blade not only mangled my hand but the force behind it shattered the bones in my arm as well.

 _At least I had decided to make sure I was able to write proficiently with my left hand as well as my right._

That was the last thought that entered my mind before the pain set in. It wasn't the worst I've ever felt and I was able to experience it with a small bit of detatchment, but that was only true for my mind. My body and the subconscious part of my brain seemed to think that the damage was significant to shock my brain enough that I needed to be knocked out to keep me from it. The last thing I was able to see was the appearance of my watcher as he took down the man who attacked me.

-Normal Perspective-

The ANBU was surprised to say the least. Naruto, despite all his expectations otherwise, had been able to react to be assault by the man. His actions had enabled him to escape death, though judging by what his arm, it looked like it left him in a high amount of pain. Seeing Naruto alive let the ANBU cool down enough to not instantly kill the hostile shinobi and instead knock him out while he was still shocked about the boy surviving his attack.

Of course the man's identity surprised him even more as it turned out to be the same Kumo ambassador he had briefly thought about right before the attack. Next, his surprise turned to comprehension and then anger when he opened up the sack the man had been carrying. In it he had found the young Hyuga heiress, Hinata Hyuga, crying as she was tied up, bound and gagged. He quickly preformed a **Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu** into the air to draw attention, before securing the Kumo ambassador and freeing the young Hyuga.

It didn't take long for members of the Hyuga clan to reach him, and the first group appeared right after he finished freeing Hinata. The ANBU was surprised to note that her Byakugan was active when he removed her blindfold. The group was headed by one Hiashi Hyuga, who, seeing the bound Kumo ambassador and his crying daughter, immediately adopted a serious frown on his face.

"What is going on here."

"Hyuga-sama, I happened to be in the area by coincidence while following orders from Hokage-sama himself and by chance ran into this man. He was dressed in his current attire and had Hinata-sama bound inside a sack he was carrying. He was accidently intercepted by my charge, who he proceeded to attempt to kill and upon doing so prompted me to incapacitate him. When I figured out who he carried, I did the first thing that came to mind to attract attention, and that's how we ended up here."

After hearing the ANBU's explanation Hiashi instantly adopted a furious expression and attempted to lunge at the man before the ANBU interposed between them. Turning to the ANBU Hiashi tersely asked.

"Why'd you stop me? This scum is not only an enemy spy but kidnapped my daughter as well. He'll be executed eventually and as the party most wronged by him I DEMAND THE RIGHT TO CARRY OUT HIS PUNISHMENT!"

All but snarling the last bit, Hiashi's Byakugan flared, and the ANBU couldn't help but feel a bit of cold sweat on his back. Those, like the ANBU, who know of Hiashi Hyuga would be surprised at him openly displaying so much emotion, and that made such a display all the more frightening.

"Unforunately Hyuga-sama, this man did come under the guise as a Kumo ambassador, and as such decisions on how to deal with him need to be made by Hokage-sama to avoid potential political problems. Plus, when he is sent to T/I, and he will be sent to T/I of that I assure you, he will pay for what he's done while he is pumped for any useful information he may have."

Hiashi only stared at the ANBU impassively for a few minutes before nodding very briefly in acquiescence.

"Very well, I concede your point."

"Thank you Hiashi-sama, can I be so bold as to ask you to call for any medics or doctors you may have? My charge was gravely injured by the Kumo-nin and while it's likely not immediately life-threatening it is still a severe injury."

Nodding to him Hiashi gives a signal to the group behind him to do as he had asked.

"It will be done. Now can I ask you to hand me my daughter back?"

His words startled the ANBU as he had forgotten he had grabbed Hinata when he had jumped in front of Hiashi before. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he was grateful that his mask hid his face. Nodding slightly, he handed Hinata, who had still been crying and buried her face into her hands, over to Hiashi. Who, once more to the surprise of the ANBU, adopts a tender expression before softly comforting the girl.

"You're ok now Hinata-hime, the man won't be able to take you again. I'm here now and I won't leave you."

"bu-bu-but the boy he…*sniffle* he got hurt because of me. It's *sniffle* my fault that he had to go through something so painful. All because I was w-w-weak."

"It's not your fault. The boy is still alive and I will make sure he gets better. It was just bad luck he got hurt, but without him being here you might have been taken from us. So don't blame yourself, alright?"

Hinata couldn't say anything, and merely nodded as her crying intensified. Seeing this Hiashi picked her up and holds her to his chest before turning his attention back to the ANBU.

"I'd like to know the name of the boy who helped save my daughter."

This of course made the ANBU hesitate, which Hiashi didn't fail to catch, before replying, as he reasoned that he'd learn his name eventually regardless of what he did.

"He is Naruto Uzumaki, Hiashi-sama."

This caused Hiashi's eyes to narrow and a frown to adorn his face. He knew of the boy and had actually been one of the ones who had called for his death when his secret was told to the council. He had nothing against the boy personally, but he felt it would be the safest decision at the time and while he wasn't proud of it he had stood by his words. Of course, when the Hokage had forbidden them from killing the boy, he hadn't taken any action against him, but still a bit of distrust and weariness remained.

Turning his attention to the boy for the first time he got the first look at the child since he was a baby and what he saw made him pause.

 _My god, he looks like a miniature version of Minato…don't tell me._

The sudden thought made Hiashi pale slightly and feel a bit sick. No one had been told the identity of the boy's parents, all he had known was that he was an orphan. When he saw the child he looked like a normal baby just with blond hair and whisker marks. But now, if what he feared was correct, he might have called for the death of the son of his two closest friends. Steeling his resolve, he asked the ANBU a question he had to all but force out of his throat.

"Tell me…. what color are the boy's eyes?"

The question was slightly strange to the ANBU but saw no reason not to answer.

"Blue, Hyuga-sama."

Hiashi pales even further before bringing his remaining free hand up to his mouth, as he had started feeling nauseous.

 _Sweet Kami I tried to have the child of my best friends murdered not even a day after their deaths. Why didn't Sarutobi tell me! If I had known, I would have never have supported killing him. …But that's it isn't it? I had still supported the killing of an innocent baby, regardless of who his parents were, and Sarutobi lost all trust he had in me at that point._

The revelation was bittersweet to Hiashi, and he sighed deeply before taking a moment to compose himself and addressing the ANBU.

"…I see. From now on Naruto Uzumaki will always be welcome at the Hyuga compound and no objections will be tolerated."

Naturally quite a few Hyugas in the group looked like they wanted to do just that, but they wisely held their tongues after seeing Hiashi's stern expression. Thankfully the tense situation was interrupted by a new group of Hyugas appearing, this one with medics and a group of ANBU accompanying the Hokage. The medics hesitated at first and began to protest when they saw who they were supposed to treat, but the combined killing intent of the ANBU, Hokage and surprisingly Hiashi made them swallow any words they wanted to saw.

Hiruzen took in the scene briefly before he started issuing commands.

"ANBU, I want two of you to stay here and watch over Naruto-kun. Once the medics do basic field treatment he is to be taken to the hospital, where no one but my personal doctors will treat him. I want the rest of you to take the prisoner to T/I and keep him in a cell until I say otherwise. Weasel, you will come back with me to my office for a full debriefing. Hiashi-sama, you are allowed to attend."

Seeing his orders being carried out, Hiruzen made his way back to his office, Weasel and Hiashi following him. After reaching his office, the full debriefing took two hours counting the various questions and clarifications Hiruzen had asked, and by the time he was done he was left in quite a pickle.

He was thankful that Weasel had prevented Hiashi from killing the Kumo-nin outright but now he was left with a delicate situation. He had to, and would, give him over to T/I in order to get any information he could from him but the political fallout wouldn't be pretty. Unless of course they could somehow find physical evidence of his intents, or at least enough to prevent any actions taken for his eventual death. Narrowing his eyes slightly as a thought came to him, Hiruzen asked Weasel another question.

"You said when you neared the Hyuga compound you weren't able to find any presence of guards Weasel?"

"That is correct Hokage-sama."

"Hiashi-sama, why were there no guards on duty tonight?"

Narrowing his eyes at the implications of the question Hiashi nonetheless answered it.

"The guards were all pulled in for the banquet we had hosted for the Kumo ambassador."

"I see. Tell me is that standard practice at the Hyuga compound?"

Narrowing his eyes further Hiashi responds.

"No Hokage-sama, however seeing as how we had reached a beneficial trade agreement and my wife had just given birth yesterday the suggestion was made to allow it this one time."

"and who made this suggestion?"

This question made Hiashi pause slightly before responding.

"I'm not sure Hokage-sama. I had been letting the Hyuga elders run the compound since yesterday as I wanted to be with my family after nearly losing my wife and daughter during her birth."

"Interesting. What happened?"

"The doctors merely stated that there were complications during the birth."

"I see. I'm glad that everything turned out ok."

"Thank you, Hokage-sama."

Nodding slightly, Hiruzen takes out a pen and paper and quickly writes something down before sealing it in an envelope and handing it to Weasel.

"Weasel you are dismissed, drop this off with Ibiki before resuming your post."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

Bowing to Hiruzen, Weasel preformed a shunsin out of the room leaving Hiashi and the Hokage alone.

"Hokage-sama…. Why didn't you tell me who the boy's parents were?"

Raising his eyebrow slightly Hiruzen takes out his pipe and lights it, puffing it once before responding.

"Which boy?"

"Don't play games with me Sarutobi! You know who I am talking about. You let me call for the death of the child of my two best friends without even knowing it!"

"Honestly, it was because when you called out for the death of a baby you had lost my trust and I felt you didn't deserve to know. Plus, telling you would have meant I'd have had to tell the rest of the council about his parents too, and we both know the council leaks information like a sieve."

While Hiashi had expected the answer he was still angry at Hiruzen but he managed to fight his temper down.

"I figured as much once I realized the boy's parentage. At least his role in saving my daughter at least offered me a pretext with which to hide behind my changed stance on the boy. Speaking of which, any word on how he is doing? Also, why does he have an ANBU permanently following him?"

Pausing a bit to smoke his pipe before answering Hiruzen instead of answering the question directly responds with one of his own.

"Tell me Hiashi, what do you know of the boy's treatment in the village?"

"Honestly nothing, after that day in the council room I hadn't even seen him before today otherwise I would have figured out his heritage sooner."

"I see, I thought as much. Then let me tell you. Two months ago we rescued Naruto from a house at which he had been held for multiple days during which he experienced extreme levels of torture before we managed to find him. The ANBU I had guarding him had let the kidnappers through after being paid off, though they admitted under interrogation they would have done it for free.

The reason he had ANBU guards in the first place was after a group of shinobi tried to assassinate him not two hours after I had announced what he contained to the village, something I still regret doing. Something I also regret that until two months ago I had neglected the boy, trusting that the orphanage, that I personally funded mind you, would treat him well. To my eternal shame they had not and I would never have known had Inoichi not told me an about a few of the memories he experienced fixing Naruto's mind.

Rescuing Naruto from the aftermath of his ordeal took Inochi four continuous days of non-stop work, and still had unintended side effects. Do you know why Naruto was up at this ungodly hour walking randomly past your compound?"

Hiashi had paled noticeably after listening to Hiruzen and could only numbly nod his head.

"Naruto never actually sleeps. Because of how extensive the damage to his mind was, even though he was 'fixed' he was not the same child as he was before. To all of our shame none of us know to what degree, as we didn't know what he was like beforehand. All Inoichi could say was he would be different. During the day Naruto is a very sweet if a bit hyperactive boy, who will instantly love you if you show but the smallest hint of kindness to him. At night however, right after he falls asleep he wakes up again and he's…different.

No one has directly interacted with him at night as we were honestly afraid of potential consequences but he seems to be non-harmful. Tonight was actually the first time he has gone outside his home, where he usually would spend the entire night sitting still and studying, only getting up to get food or take care of other business. What's more, we know for a fact that at least the day version of Naruto has no knowledge of his nighttime counterpart, which was confirmed by Inoichi himself. We think that his nighttime counterpart knows as he doesn't seem surprised by what he finds in the apartment and knows exactly where the day version puts things.

We all hesitate to even mention in the vaguest of terms its existence to day Naruto in fear that it might prompt unwanted memories to return to him, which could lead to another mental collapse. So until tonight I've adopted a hands off approach when it came to the night version, mostly as a precaution that something similar could occur if it was confronted. After tonight however I fear we will have to make contact with it. Day Naruto can be luckily fooled by a simple lie as to his condition and current location, but I need to know what the night version is aiming for before I make a decision regarding its treatment. It hadn't been a problem till now as he had never left the house but if he's going to regularly go out at night I fear I have no choice."

Finished with his explanation Hiruzen sits back in his chair while Hiashi thinks over all that he had said. He was happy to see, in a sad sort of way, a look of guilt, sadness and anger flash over his face before he managed to regain control of his "political face" as he called it. The room was filled with silence as Hiruzen waited for Hiashi to speak, it was only interrupted once when an ANBU appeared in the room and whispered into the Hokage's ear before returning back to the quiet atmosphere it was previously. It took a few minutes before Hiashi spoke to Hiruzen and when he did the Hokage was pleasantly surprised.

"You were right Hokage-sama and my actions, regardless of the reasoning, were incorrect. While I'm unhappy at you for not telling me of the boy's parents I understand why you did it and accept your decision. What I will not forgive however is the fact that the one man who did know basically abandoned the boy to his fate and washed his hands of the matter for five whole years!"

Hiashi all but growled the last part and the sheer anger in his voice was surprising enough to Hiruzen to cause his pipe to fall out of his mouth. He hadn't remembered Hiashi ever being this expressive _maybe almost losing his wife and both his daughters made him lose his composure_ he mused. Still he could only sigh heavily, as he could not fault the man for his anger over his actions, or rather inaction, regarding Naruto.

"I don't expect you to, as I can't even forgive myself. However, what's done is done and I can do nothing to change it. All I can do is try and make up for my mistakes, however long it takes."

Hiashi was far from mollified but could only tersely nod at to Hokage's words.

"Now then, you will be happy to know that Naruto is recovering quite well and is expected to make a full recovery by the end of the week. In fact, somehow his shattered bones appear to be becoming stronger than before if you can believe. I guess we have his tenant to thank for that. If that is all, you are dismished Hiashi."

Bowing to the Hokage, Hiashi leaves the room, leaving a rather tired Hiruzen to deal with the mess this incident has created.

"I hate paperwork."

-Next Day-

Naruto woke up in a familiar room with no idea how he got there. Seeing a familiar face sitting in the chair next to the bed he asks him a question.

"Hey ji-ji why am I here and how did I get here?"

"Ah Naruto-kun, I'm happy you woke up. Do you not remember?"

"Hmmm. Not really, last thing I remember was going to bed."

"I see, well long story short you woke up in the middle of the night for some reason and couldn't go back to sleep so you decided to go on a walk. You ended up walking by the Hyuga compound where you saved the Hyuga heiress from being kidnapped by an enemy shinobi. Unforunately, he injured you quite severely in the process and left you with a bad arm and head injury. Luckily for you, an ANBU had noticed your late night excursion, followed you to make sure you were safe, and managed to apprehend the man and get you to this hospital.

It seems like the hit to the head disturbed your memory of this event, however, which is unfortunate. The doctors say you'll make a full recovery and be out in a couple of days. Also, the head of the Hyuga clan and the father of the daughter you helped save had stated that you are welcome to come visit them anytime. I hear his daughter is quite worried about you."

Naruto seemed a bit stunned by everything he had been told, but he quickly adopted a blinding smile before shouting out.

"WOW I'm totally awesome! At this rate there's no way I won't be Hokage someday!"

Hiruzen lets out a warm chuckle at the boy's exuberance before telling him.

"Well now that I know that you're up, I'll take my leave; your friends have been waiting for to see you for a while now. You made them, especially your friend Ino, quite worried."

Saying so the Hiruzen leaves the room which is promptly invaded by Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, their respective parents, Teuchi, Ayame and Suu. Smiling at the scene briefly, Hiruzen turns his thoughts towards tonight and his conversation with Naruto's other half.

-Two years later: Naruto perceptive-

It was currently nighttime and I was at my usual training ground practicing more chakra control exercises under the watchful eye of my instructor. It had been an interesting conversation almost two years ago that had led to the current situation. The Hokage, and a man who was apparently the one who had been watching me, had appeared in my room only a couple of minutes after I had "woken up".

They had asked me a long series of questions as they tried to figure me out. I had guessed my actions that fateful night had finally spurred them into taking action but it mattered little. I answered their questions truthfully as I had seen no benefit in lying and figured it would be illogical for them to wish to hurt me as they would have done so without revealing themselves if they did. I told them everything I knew from what I remembered, how I viewed myself and my counterpart, what I thought of my situation, what I thought of them and what my goals were.

Needless to say they weren't happy with my answers but they didn't seem particularly upset or even surprised by them. I had said I remembered everything and that includes the false memories I had, which caused the old man to flinch when I said that. I said I viewed myself as Naruto and my counterpart as just another part of me, albeit a naïve and simple part but a part I viewed to likely be necessary nonetheless. They were a bit surprised but not unhappy by the response which was interesting.

As for what I thought of them and my situation, I stated simply that I didn't really have much in the way of thoughts on the subject. I couldn't figure out a way to change the situation and that my other-self needed them all to function but it didn't matter to me. They seemed a bit saddened by this but it was what it was. The last question was asked with even more seriousness than the others and had a hint of a threat in it. Naturally, this didn't really bother me, as I knew they wouldn't physical harm me if they indeed cared for my other half like he seemed to believe they did, but I answered them truthfully and with as much sincerity as I could manage anyways. I had replied with a simple answer, my goals were to get stronger to protect myself, both of my selves.

Their response had been…interesting. The old man had simply nodded thoughtfully before telling the other man, who he had called Weasel, to help me train at night. Of course I didn't decline this and soon he started helping me train my chakra. All we ever worked on was chakra control, but I didn't mind, as his reasoning for doing so made sense, and I would have likely done something similar anyways.

After two years I had finally mastered every chakra control exercise he had given me, leaf sticking, leaf floating, tree walking, water walking and even a few new ones he created after we found out how bad my control was and how big my reserves were. Tonight was the night I was finally going to be taught a few jutsus, and if I could have been I would have been excited.

"Are you ready for the first jutsu, Naruto-kun?"

"Hai, Itachi-sensei."

 **AN: And that was the chapter, did you like it? How many guessed who the ANBU would be correctly? Personally I had fun writing this chapter for some reason. Don't get me wrong I enjoy writing all the chapters but I don't usually have fun doing so. It's a weird thing kind of hard to explain so I'm not gona try. Hoped you like it as much as I did. Also there will be some explanation into some events that happened during the two years as some of them I believe will be important. They won't be very long and will probably be done in the vein of short flashbacks but I'll see when I write it. That's all I had to say.**

 **Thanks for reading,**

 **Ren Waya**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here's the next chapter of SMDS hope you enjoy it. Thanks for all the positive feedback you guys have been giving me, it means a lot. Some of you had questions about the Hyuga and Naruto. If you read my AN at the end of last chapter you'd know that I'd be going over some important things in a flashback this chapter. Hopefully it answers most of your questions. Beyond that I enjoy the speculation you guys have been making in regards to Naruto's state of mind. I won't confirm or deny anything but some of you are on the right track while others are not. Just a small thought to tease you with, I plan on introducing the Kyuubi early (won't say why, how, when or what it will be like).**

 **Side note: coming up with chapter titles is hard for me. I can write a whole 5000+ words of this story in less than 4-5 hours but coming up a chapter title takes me forever T.T**

 **Bold is for jutsu and Kyuubi/mindscape speak**

 _Italics is for thoughts_

-Chapter 4: 2 years-

-Normal Perspective-

Itachi Uchiha was a harsh task master, and wasn't afraid to let you know if your performance was sub-par by his standards. That was why it had taken Naruto an entire two years to get his chakra control to levels deemed nearly impossible for someone with his amount of reserves. Luckily, his chakra coils, which were still huge by the standards of anyone else his age, were still not fully developed, and thus he had less chakra he needed to control than he would when he was fully grown. The flip side to this, however, was the fact that he'd have to constantly come up with more chakra control exercises as he got older, to keep the same level of control he currently had.

Still, Itachi had been both impressed and a little amused by the fact that it took Naruto a bit over two years to gain good control over his reserves. Of course, the boy would never be a medic-nin, as it would likely be impossible to fine tune his control enough to perform medical ninjutsu, but he'd made sure the boy could perform even the basic academy jutsu. Obviously, there'd be a lot of challenge involved with such a task, and Naruto would likely never be able to create just one standard bunshin, but Itachi didn't mind.

He believed that Naruto likely wouldn't use the standard bunshin once he learned an improved version of the technique, but that was fine as that wasn't the point. For one thing, basics were important, and having Naruto learn the standards by which chakra usage was measured by normal shinobi would enable the boy to make better use of his own massive reserves. For another, if the personalities did merge by the time Naruto entered the academy, he would actually be able to pass at that point, something Itachi unfortunately didn't view as likely for his daytime counterpart.

Regardless, he'd push the boy as hard as possible during his training, until he viewed that no more progress could be made, as he didn't know how much longer he could teach him.

Naruto, for his part, had never once complained about any facet of his training, whether it was the repetitiveness, long hours, difficult tasks, or the constant correction of his mistakes. He had simply accepted everything Itachi had told him to do or any corrections he had Naruto make, before continuing on with the exercises. His single minded determination was astonishing to Itachi, who had never seen someone willingly work on just chakra control for hours on end every day without complaint for two months, let alone two years.

He wasn't about to take the gift of such a moldable student for granted, though. His primary regret was that Naruto's daytime self possessed none of his night version's work ethic. In fact, it was hard to get the boy to sit still an even listen to a normal conversation let alone teaching. The only person he had seen the boy sit still and listen to for longer than that had been Suu, who the boy basically viewed as his mother, and even then he fidgeted often. The boy still desired to be a shinobi, still claiming his desire to become Hokage, but seemed inclined to wait until the academy before he even looked at training.

Of course he didn't begrudge the boy this after being made privy to some of the boy's past, especially considering the fact that he was the one to rescue him from his captors. The boy spent every minute he could being with either his friends, the Hokage, Suu or his favorite ramen shop and he was glad the boy was able to find happiness in his life now. He was a bit of a troublemaker though and had become somewhat of a prankster, though as far as Itachi knew he only went after people who had been…less than kind to him.

This did little to endear himself to the small percentage of the population that didn't know him already, or held neutral opinions on him. One good thing, though, was that over the years his relationships with the major shinobi clans had improved greatly to the point that, barring the Uchiha who still hated him passionately, they generally liked the boy or at least didn't actively dislike him, even the Hyuga. There were exceptions of course, but for the majority this was the case. The boy's decision to regularly visit the Hyuga compound was less than ideal however, especially for the first week he had gone there.

-Flashback: 2 years ago-

Itachi was worried for his charge. Naruto had just got out of the hospital, and the first thing he decided to do was go visit the Hyuga compound. He was there when Hiashi had given him that open invitation, of course, but he didn't completely trust the man regardless of how sincere he sounded, especially when he saw the looks the Hyuga clan members had given the boy that night. It also didn't help that he had been told by his rather irate father five years ago that when they had tried to kill the "demon child" the Hokage had ignored the advice of almost all his council in doing so, even the Hyuga clan head Hiashi Hyuga.

So he was more on guard when the boy was standing outside of the compound than he had been the night after he had been injured. It was a good thing too, as a rather angry Hyuga guard had tried to flat out kill the boy after he had refused to leave immediately after he had been told to do so. He had stopped him in time, although it was rather awkward to explain to Naruto why he had been following him afterwards. Still, he had managed to subdue the guard long enough for Hiashi himself to come out and take control of the situation.

Naturally, he had maintained a strict guard during all his visits to the compound, which had saved the boy from four separate assassination attempts that week. He didn't think that Hiashi had any knowledge of the attempts considering his genuinely angry expression when he learned of them. Also, after the first incident none of the attempts were direct assaults and instead came in the form of deadly traps, which he also managed to spot and disarm before Naruto was aware of their presence. This gave Hiashi a certain credibility when it came to the boy, as the first man's punishment was severe enough that it had scared away further direct attempts, although Itachi still didn't trust him fully.

Naturally, he had gone to the Hokage after the very first attempt, and had brought up his concerns. He hadn't gotten any satisfying answer, merely being told he didn't believe Hiashi had any desire to hurt Naruto, but if he felt he needed to be more cautious then there wasn't any reason to stop him. After a full week of assassination attempts, however, he had had enough and would get answers even if it would be seen as insubordination.

He cared for the boy almost like a little brother, possibly because he had a little brother Naruto's age, and knowing of Naruto's past treatment felt extremely protective as he imagined Sasuke in his place. So, he would either be told a valid reason why the man who he respected and had believed to want nothing but the best for Naruto would willingly let him go somewhere so dangerous to him, or he would take matters into his own hands.

He had left a shadow clone with Naruto to continue his training tonight, as he traveled to the Hokage's office for a rather important meeting. When he had appeared in the room, Hiruzen didn't seem the least bit surprised, which led Itachi to believe he had been expecting something like this. This belief only strengthened after hearing Hiruzen's subsequent words.

"Finally here for answers are you? I admit I had expected you to come in at least a couple more days, you must care more for Naruto than I thought."

Itachi said nothing and merely stood there impassively, starring at the Hokage in silence. Hiruzen sighed slightly before leaning back in his chair and refilling his pipe.

"ANBU leave us, I'd like to talk to Weasel alone."

The faint sound of rushing wind was all the indication that his orders had been followed.

"Now then, you came here for answers and I believe you are trustworthy enough to hear them, but know that these are S-class secrets and speaking of them to anyone will result in your death."

Itachi only nodded slightly at which Hiruzen only sighed before taking a long puff from his pipe.

"To make it short, Hiashi figured out who Naruto's parents were. They had been best friends since their days at the academy, and Hiashi only voted to have him killed as a baby because he, like the rest of the council, wasn't informed of his parentage. Of course, his actions had made me lose faith in him, which was why he didn't find out until that night who Narutos' parents were. So Hiashi has absolutely no intent to harm Naruto, in fact, quite the opposite, which is why I allow him to visit the Hyuga compound whenever he pleases. I'm happy that he has so quickly befriended young Hinata, as I feel he will do wonders for her confidence issues."

Itachi takes the information in silently and thinks it over for a minute before responding.

"I get why he is allowed to go, then, and now that I know I'm more inclined to trust Hiashi-sama. However, while I understand you trusting Hiashi-sama and are willing to let him go, I don't understand why you won't keep him from going while the perpetrator or perpetrators of the last few assassination attempts remain unknown."

"What makes you think we don't know who they are?"

To say Itachi was surprised was an understatement, but the only visible sign of his shock was a slight raising of his eyebrows, which were hidden by his mask.

"You know who they are, then?"

"Indeed, the only reason we haven't apprehended them yet is that we are trying to give all the hostile Hyuga members enough rope to hang themselves. We knew he would be targeted the moment he went to the compound, all we had to do was wait for the identities of any hostile elements to be revealed. You see, those that hate Naruto the most among the Hyuga, and would actually try to kill him, are the Hyuga elders and those that they control, plus a few random individuals. Thanks to certain information revealed by the Kumo-nin you captured we already have enough reasons to have them executed or imprisoned for treason.

Apparently, these Hyuga had not only tried to kill Hiashi's wife and unborn daughter with poisoning, which the ambassador had brought the elders last year when he was here, but had also cut a deal to enable the Kumo-nin to kidnap Hinata as well. The poison was apparently the cause of her complications during birth and if not for a large amount of luck and the fact that the doctors were skilled and loyal to Hiashi they would have both died. With no legal heirs and filled with grief, Hiashi would have been easy for them to replace with someone they could control.

Still, while we could get rid of the elders we could not do the same with their supporters, who would have likely been tempted to aid them or at least follow in their footsteps. Thus why we allowed Naruto to be subjected to assassination attempts at the compound."

"So you allowed a five-year-old child to be the bait for assassins in order to carry out a political coup with only me to guard him? I admit to being confident in my skills but even I can make mistakes or be unlucky, and your actions and words have done little to make me believe you actually care for the boy like you claim."

"Come now Itachi, you know how this world works. Besides, who says you were the only one guarding the boy? The Byakugan isn't known as the all seeing eye for nothing, and despite the hostile elements Hiashi has the support of the majority of the clan, especially the branch members who are the most sympathetic to Naruto in the clan."

"Indeed…I still don't like your actions but you are right. I do understand. and do feel that your actions while not commendable were the best to take in this situation. However, I would still prefer if Naruto didn't have to go back to the compound until the hostile elements are dealt with."

Hiruzen merely nodded slightly.

"That is understandable, I will inform Naruto not to visit the Hyugas for a few days. We already have enough to take the majority away, and the few remaining will be easily dealt with through other means. By the middle of next week, the problem should be resolved, and Naruto will be safe to go to the Hyuga compound once more."

"Thank you Hokage-sama."

Hiruzen just grunted and waved him off.

"One last question Hokage-sama, does Hiashi-sama know about Naruto's eyes and how he acquired them?"

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes slightly at the question and paused a bit before answering.

"He does not know about Naruto's new eyes, as even though he wouldn't particularly care and possibly even find it to be an odd form of justice, the clan laws would force him to take action. Even once he is rid of the Hyuga elders if the clan as a whole knew of Naruto's eyes before he became a full-fledged shinobi, even if they don't hate the boy, they'd still call for him to at least be placed under the caged-bird seal. I believe it to be the best decision to not inform him unless absolutely necessary, for both Naruto's and his sake. That being said, I did tell him about Naruto's…ordeal and how one of his clan members was the main perpetrator. If it wasn't for all his training as the Hyuga clan head and experiences during the last war I'm sure he would have thrown up. He nearly did once, I told him about the consequences the incident had on Naruto's mind."

"I see- how did you explain the body's missing eyes, though? Come to think of it why hasn't he worried about the missing clan member at all?"

"I never showed him the body, and had promised on my title as Hokage that the body had been properly disposed of and that the Byakugan wouldn't fall into enemy hands. It wasn't technically a lie, as Naruto isn't currently an enemy and hopefully never will be, despite how the village has treated him. As for him not worrying, I had informed him that his clan member would be on an extended solo mission for a few months. Since the member had been an active jounin they had readily believed it. I had planned to inform him he had died on the mission after bleeding out from an ambush. Before which, he had been able to call for backup and kill off his assailants, thus leaving the body for us to 'find'".

"Thank you for taking the time to answer my concerns Hokage-sama, now I must be off, I left a shadow to teach my new student but I'd prefer to do it myself seeing as how he is my first."

-Flashback end-

He no longer distrusted the Hyuga, especially after all the elders and their supporters were either killed or imprisoned, and even felt grateful to them. The Hyuga had managed to do what no one else had up until that point, they had managed to not only get the daytime Naruto to speak politely, but had also managed to instill basic table manners as well. Of course, this only ever showed itself when he visited the Hyuga compound, and even then his manners were below even civilian children his age. It was still a vast improvement over his normal behavior though.

The young Hyuga heiress had been even better for the boy than the teachings he had received at the compound. Hinata had quickly become one of Naruto's best friends and seemed to be considered to be a friend on the same level as Ino. Where Ino was similar to Naruto, Hinata was nearly the opposite. She was quiet where they were loud, calm where Naruto was hyperactive, shy where they were outgoing and timid where Ino was bossy. Yet, they managed to get along better than they did with anyone else.

They would always play together even if their other friends didn't want to, going so far as to make their group a permanent team whenever they played shinobi. Hinata was able to mellow out and calm the two blonds slightly whenever they were together, while they were able to help her gain more confidence and break out of her shell. Hinata would never be an extrovert, but thanks to their help she had managed to lose her stutter last month, although it still popped up on rare occasions due to stress.

Itachi was happy that Naruto's life had improved so drastically over the past couple of years. While his selves were still independent and lacked traits the other had, both of his "lives" had been able to improve significantly.

Itachi pulled himself out of his memories briefly as he watched Naruto once more fail to use a kawarimi successfully, before returning to his thoughts. He had left the ANBU to become a jounin about a month after he started training Naruto, much to his father's displeasure, in order to not have to worry about guarding him at the same time as teaching him. It also enabled him to usually sleep through the day, as Hiruzen had made it his semi-permanent mission to teach Naruto at night, and he needed more rest if he was going to continuously keep such odd hours.

He had been a captain before he left, and the youngest one in Konoha's history, which was a source of pride for the Uchiha clan. When he left, however, that pride had turned into scorn and disappointment, although it was anger and scorn from his father. He had been lucky they hadn't known his exact reasons for doing so.

 _At least until yesterday_ Itachi thought with a grimace.

If he had needed any more reason to dislike his clan and not doubt his actions towards them, that night had been what had settled it. Shaking himself out of his rather grim line of thinking, Itachi once more focused on Naruto.

"You still aren't visualizing your target enough. You need a clear picture of the target you are switching with. You can't just imagine any block of wood to switch with or it won't work, you have to visualize the exact one you intend to use in order to execute the jutsu correctly. The more detailed you can make you image the better the technique.

If you are able to get the general outline and any major details of the target correctly that is essentially level one of the technique, at least in how I view it. Level one is only good for wooden logs or other objects of comparable size to your own. As you get more skilled in your visualizations the substitution not only becomes faster but easier as well, it will also enable you to use smaller objects for the jutsu as well.

In order to obtain mastery of the technique, you'll have to be able to make an exact replica of the object in your mind down to the most minute detail. This level is generally only possible for those that have a doujustsu as regular eyes aren't able to see or remember things in such exact detail. Still, even without one, you should be able to reach a point where you can even kawarimi with a small sized boulder no taller than your shins."

Finished with his rather long winded, for him, speech Itachi watched as Naruto nodded before closing his eyes in concentration. He remained that way for a solid two minutes before preforming the jutsu, only this time he was successful.

"That's the correct way Naruto, now that you've gotten the idea down I want you to practice it a few more times before I teach you some visualization drills. I would also recommend you take up sketching, as it is a good way to practice your visualization and memorization skills."

Naruto merely nodded slightly at the suggestion before returning to his practice. If there was one thing that Itachi would complain about Naruto's nighttime personality it was the fact that he didn't speak unless he absolutely had to. He was an extremely diligent and hard worker but he just did everything with an empty face and usually responded to comments with gestures.

He could talk, but was very concise when he did, speaking no more than absolutely necessary and only with left with no other option. After the night they had confronted him he hadn't said a word in months. Even when he was struggling with a task Itachi had given him, he preferred to figure out how to fix any problems on his own rather than ask.

This give Itachi a bit of a headache as he found himself compelled to explain things to Naruto when he was having difficulties, and since Naruto didn't ask any questions or explain his problem this forced him to explain the entire thing in detail. He had probably said more in the last two years alone than he had all his previous life. Still, after a while, he had been able to understand this Naruto's thought process better and more efficiently figure out the problems he was likely to encounter, as was the case just now.

Naruto, while possessed of a near perfect memory, as far as he could tell, was very poor at visualizing or imagining things. He wasn't sure why that was the case but his best guess involved something to about the nature of his split personalities. Regardless of the cause, its effect was obvious, as it took him an unusually long time to grasp the basic visualization of chakra and the various exercises he had been taught. On the other hand, once he got that portion down he improved exponentially, which was gratifying to see.

After a couple more hours of practicing the kawarimi and doing the visualization exercises, Naruto called it a day, or rather a night, as it was nearing the time when his counterpart usually woke up. Itachi had given him a sketch pad and some pencils before he left, which he had accepted as Itachi hadn't been wrong about his training yet.

Reaching his home, Naruto quickly entered his hiding spot and put the sketch pad into it along with a number of other materials he had acquired on the way back. He had managed to seal off an entire room and keep it hidden from his other self, thanks to Itachi and the Hokage, who had agreed that he needed a personal space that his counterpart didn't know about to store his supplies.

He was still mildly surprised by the fact that people threw out perfectly good books, weapons and even currency on occasion, and made use of the fact. Sure they were old or dirty or both, but were still readable or in the case of weapons useable for practicing. It still intrigued him how he had felt surprised again, albeit much less strongly than in the past. He still didn't feel emotions like his other side did, but he was able to have reactions now, like surprise and displeasure, although at a much more subdued level than his counterpart.

He wondered what had caused the change as he didn't know anything that could have caused it. Just one day a few months back he had just saw one of his former "caretakers" on his way back home from training. He hadn't been noticed, and passed by the man unseen, but still the sight of them caused a slight feeling of displeasure to well up inside of him. After this incident he had a few other cases of experiencing displeasure, and soon surprise followed along in its wake. Of course they didn't show up often, but still it was a mystery to him.

With these thoughts circling in his mind, Naruto headed to the apartment his other had chosen for his home. Like clockwork he was asleep in five minutes, and two minutes later he woke up again.

-Naruto perspective-

When I woke up I felt exhausted for a brief minute before I was quickly filled with energy. The odd feeling of being almost devoid of energy before quickly being filled without an almost overflowing amount of energy was still strange to me. I was used to it, of course, seeing as it had happened every morning when I woke up for the past couple of years but it still felt strange.

Like always, though, I quickly forgot about this line of thought, and got up and made myself breakfast. I had gotten a new flavor of ramen yesterday that was made specifically for breakfast and was excited to try it. Ramen was the food of the gods to me, as it was not only the first type of food I had eaten that hadn't tasted bad or was rotten, but was also the first food my ji-ji had bought me at the only store I'd been to that didn't treat me badly. I'm still curious as to why people say it's bad for me though, as it hasn't hurt me yet, and I'm apparently healthier than the majority of kids my age.

So yes, I never got tired of eating ramen, and would eat it for every meal if I could, which I did if he wasn't eating at one of my friends' houses. That was another thing I never got tired of, having friends. Sure, we occasionally didn't get along, but they never hated or blamed me for it and we always made up after disagreements. The fact that they actually liked me and were allowed to play with me was priceless.

Of course. that was doubly the case for Ino-chan and Hinata-chan. Ino had been my very first friend who hadn't been taken from me. When Inoichi-san had taken me to his house that fateful day, I didn't know what to expect. Sure he had been nice enough when I talked to him in the hospital, but people changed when they were seen by other people and I was honestly worried.

Thankfully, all my worries had been baseless, when I saw the expression he made to the flower shop workers who had glared hatefully at me. It turned out to be the second best day of my life, as I not only made friends with Ino-chan but was allowed to come back as often as I wanted. I didn't really abuse the offer at first, mostly because I was worried he'd take it back but it was hard to stay away from my only friend so I still went every other day. When I noticed that they didn't seem to mind, I started coming every day to visit, and I haven't had a day where I wasn't with either my friends, ji-ji or Suu-neechan since.

Of course, I still was treated poorly by most of the village, but my friends and their families and their treatment were able to, mostly, make the looks and whispers they gave me bearable. I also hadn't been beaten or abused since I moved out of the orphanage, and no one had tried to kill me again, except for that one Hyuga-teme. A lot of my early memories are fuzzy or unclear to me, but I still remember some of the attempts on my life and I was glad to see them gone.

Still, I'd make the entire village recognize me, and see how wrong they were about me, when I became Hokage one day. I might not be a shinobi yet but in another two years ji-ji says I can attend the academy and after four years I'd be able to become a full-fledged shinobi and will be once step closer to becoming Hokage.

These were my usual thoughts as I walked toward the home of one of my friends for the day. We usually changed whose home we visited every week and this week it was the Hyuga compound where we would play at. It was a bit stuffy for my liking and I had to act more "civilized" whenever I was there, which was hard but it was worth it. The only reason I even learned how to be more formal was because of Hinata-chan, as it seemed to make her happy, and even though she was a bit quiet she was still my closest friend next to Ino. I guess the scary look Hiashi-san gives when I'm too improper had something to do with it as well.

Nearing the gate, I saw Shikamaru, Choji and Ino walking up together and I waved excitedly to them. I was happy how much my life had changed, and despite some of the oddities about the reason for it, that I still couldn't figure out, I wouldn't change it for anything.

-4 months later-

-Normal Perspective-

It had been four months of hard training for Naruto, but he was finally at academy level in all the basic jutsu except for the bunshin, for which his record low so far had been forty. Still, Itachi had been happy with his progress and was glad it had happened so quickly. His time was running out, and he didn't know how much longer he could train Naruto before he had to take action. His clan was growing more restless by the year and he feared it wouldn't be long before they did something stupid.

To make matters worse, the village had finally figured out where Naruto lived last month and the Kyuubi festival was only a couple of weeks away. Thankfully Naruto is never in "his" home for long as he is either training or having his one rest day a week inside his personal room at night, so no damage had been done to him. There had been quite the mess in "his" room though and night Naruto had to stay up longer than usual while it was cleaned.

As it was, Naruto was slightly disorientated from sleeping in that day, but had written it off as just a random occurrence. Unfortunately, however, now that the knowledge was public he feared what would happen on the day of the Kyuubi festival. Sure Naruto had an ANBU guard at all times and Suu had said she would spend the day with him but he was still worried. It didn't help that he'd be going on an extended mission in a couple of days and would likely not be back until a few days after the festival ended.

There wasn't much he could do to change this, however, so he did the one thing he could do, train Naruto. Two days wasn't much time to train the basics of a new jutsu but it was what he had and he knew Naruto would keep working on it relentlessly even if he wasn't there. He had decided to teach him a simple Katon jutsu as it was the element he was most proficient in. It was basically a downgraded version of the **Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu** but it was a strong enough deterrent for any civilian.

Of course, there was the fact that it wouldn't be that effective on a shinobi. While the last thought was troubling to Itachi, he didn't find the possibility that likely considering in general the clan shinobi no longer attacked Naruto or even hated him, and even if they did he still had his ANBU guard. What worried him more was the thought of what would happen if it wasn't night Naruto that was attacked.

 **AN: That's the chapter hope you enjoyed it.**

 **Thanks for reading,**

 **Ren**


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